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Carlo Ancelotti had just become the first manager to win the European Cup five times, and yet you wouldn’t have known it from his post-match press conference, deep inside the bowels of Wembley Stadium on Saturday night.
The Real Madrid boss had just completed an extraordinary feat – no other gaffer has ever won the trophy four times, let alone five – but it barely seemed to be a topic of conversation, on a night when the headlines were made by Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Junior, Toni Kroos, perhaps even Dani Carvajal ahead of Ancelotti.
Contrast that with whenever Pep Guardiola, Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho won the trophy – their personal triumph became the narrative, with praise showered down from all angles. Had Mourinho won five European Cups, he’d have probably held up five fingers throughout the entire press conference, explaining every reason why it made him better than his bitter rivals.
In the same press conference room eight years ago, after winning a mere FA Cup, Louis van Gaal carried the trophy in and pointedly plonked it down in front of him, as a retort to his critics.
That just isn’t Ancelotti’s style, and never has been. There wasn’t a hint of boastfulness as the 64-year-old sat down, twiddled his eyebrows around in trademark fashion, and matter-of-factly discussed a game that further proved his status as a managerial great.
The record he’d just set was almost the elephant in the room. First, the Italian was asked about what he’d said at half-time to successfully turn around the final against Borussia Dortmund, modestly describing it as a collective change of approach, rather than any sort of genius plan he’d devised all by himself.
“I didn’t need to get angry, I needed to clarify a few things,” Ancelotti said. “Dortmund played a fantastic game in transition in the first half, and we had to manage that transition better. We thought changing the system to 4-3-3 would be better for us. We talked about the change together, it wasn’t my decision alone. I said to the players that it would be best if we changed, and we did it together.”
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He was asked about the campaign as a whole – a campaign in which Real Madrid also won La Liga. “This season has been a 10 out of 10, my players have been spectacular,” he said. “This squad makes me very satisfied because they never give up. You have to win the Champions League with sacrifice and quality, one of the two is not enough, you need both. That’s what happened today.”
He was also asked about Toni Kroos, who announced before the game that he would leave the club this summer, at the age of 34. “I’m really grateful to him, not only because of his game but his attitude and professionalism,” Ancelotti said. “I said to him ‘If you change your mind, we’re still here, we’ll wait for you’.”
One questioner mentioned the manager’s new record of five European Cups in passing, going on to ask about Ancelotti’s son Davide, who works as his assistant. Such is Ancelotti’s selflessness, he never returned to the record in his answer, instead talking at length about the importance of his son to Real Madrid’s success.
“My son is my assistant coach, we’re a family, and Real Madrid is a family, a footballing family,” he said.
Ancelotti was asked about next season, when he’ll be able to add Kylian Mbappe and Endrick to his squad, even if the former signing is yet to be officially confirmed. “If we don’t have Toni Kroos, we’ll have resources in order to remain competitive,” was the Italian’s cryptic way of saying it. “In this club there’s a continuous demand, we’re never satisfied. The players will come back with the same eagerness as before.”
Only then did he partly address his historic achievement, when asked if his target next year will be to secure Real Madrid’s 16th European Cup, as if what he’d already done hadn’t been impressive enough.
“My target? To try to do my best all the time,” he said prosaically. “This competition has given me fantastic happiness as a player and as a manager – my target is to try to repeat the same emotions. I have the luck to be at the best club in the world.”
Because he’s not a flashy manager full of soundbites, nor a tactical revolutionary, Ancelotti has never quite been given the credit he’s due for his many achievements.
His strength is in simplicity – astute tactical decisions, astute man management, getting the best out of good players, without needing to rock the boat, or rip everything up and start again. Sometimes, simplicity is the most effective thing of all. Players like him, and he wins football matches.
Milan have never really looked like winning another Champions League since the two he won with them during the Noughties. Chelsea won the league in his first season at the club, only to fire him after just one more campaign, in which they finished runners-up.
It was Ancelotti who won La Decima, the 10th European Cup for Real Madrid, in his first season at the club in 2013-14, after they’d waited for 12 years to achieve the feat. Again, he was afforded only one more season, before being relieved of his duties.
Somehow, by 2019, his worth was so overlooked by the top clubs that he’d ended up as manager of Everton. His return to Real Madrid in 2021 came as something as a surprise – particularly to the Toffees – but it’s delivered two Champions League trophies in the last three years.
“It was complicated to think I could do that, winning two Champions Leagues in three years, and two league titles with a team that was changing little by little,” Ancelotti admitted post-match at Wembley. “But it’s been a fantastic present for me, the chance to come back here. I’m enjoying trying to show the best version of me, and making the most of it.”
The best version of Ancelotti has now won five European Cups, two more than any other manager in history. Some day, perhaps people will realise just how talented he had to be to make that happen.
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