Carlo Ancelotti Read online

  “Chairman, I can’t possibly tell you the reason.” So we talk, and we talk, and we talk some more. I’m very comfortable chatting with Abramovich. He’s not intimidating, even when he says to me, with a slight catch in his voice: “Look, we just lost out on the Champions League finals, we just got bounced out of the championship, I have nothing to be happy about. Chelsea just seems to lack personality. My ambition is to win every game my team plays, but right now I just don’t recognize my team.” He cares very much about winning and about playing the game with style. Again, he reminds me of someone. There go another forty minutes, like a flash. “Thanks very much, Ancelotti, we’ll be in touch.” Not a word about money. OK, I can read between the lines. There’s no opening just now.

  I walk upstairs, I see daylight. In the true sense of the word. But I no longer see Pastorello, nor do I see my friend and colleague and fellow coach. They’ve all vanished. So I vanish, too. I go out for a walk, and Paris beckons. A couple of hours go by, my phone rings.

  “Hello, this is Adriano Galliani: how’s Paris?” Pause. The vice-president of A. C. Milan. “How’s your little fling going?”

  He already knows everything. Caught red-handed, like Moratti and Mourinho. It wasn’t a fling, nothing happened, now it’s clear to me, and I tell him so immediately: “I came to have a meeting with Abramovich. When the owner of such an important team calls you, the very least you can do is go and listen to what he has to say.”

  “But you’re not going anywhere.”

  “I have no desire to go anywhere.”

  I was curious to meet a major figure in my world, sure, but I didn’t feel any burning need to leave Milan. Right then and there, I was getting along fine with my team.

  I walk on into the sweet Parisian night, a perfect opportunity to take a few steps back into the past, to remember. To remember one thing in particular: every time I’ve faced a serious decision as a coach, it’s been challenging. They are always delicate situations. They can even verge on the comical. Like the time I took to my heels like a thief in the night, just to avoid signing a contract.

  CHAPTER 4

  Turkish Delights

  Everything began in Istanbul, and from the very beginning I should have known that the city has a curse on it; that is, until someone proves otherwise. When I was relieved of my duties at Parma (June 1998, just as the second year in the three-year contract was up), the Turks showed up. Unlike the cliché, they didn’t smoke. I did the smoking, actually. But they were generous with their money. Just three days after the final championship match, I heard from Fenerbahçe S. K., a team with twenty million fans, all of Asian Turkey at its feet. They really wanted me, that much was clear. The company that owned the team was well capitalized; the chairman, Aziz Yildirim, ran a high-end real estate company that ran Turkey’s NATO bases. He was a dynamic and competent person, and at that moment I was his personal objective. With one major sticking point: I really wasn’t very excited about the idea.

  They came to visit me at my home, and they wheedled a promise out of me: “All right, I’ll come visit your training grounds for three days, without obligations. But the trip must be kept secret.” Just like in Paris. The secret journey, which began with a flight in a private jet from Parma, continued this way: a triumphal welcome at Istanbul airport by thousands of Turkish fans, who actually carried me on their shoulders at one point. Accommodations in the imperial suite of the Hotel Kempinski, with a bathroom the size of an Olympic stadium. A constant procession of strangers bringing me carpets—so very many carpets. Dinner on the Bosphorus. An excursion on a sailboat, with photographers perched in the rigging. My name in banner headlines in every Turkish daily. Forty-eight hours of treatment befitting a Roman emperor—just the usual travel arrangements you make when you want to pass unobserved.

  My last dinner in Istanbul was when they made their offer. “We’ll give you three million dollars a season for three years.” Translation: a lot of money. Just to put it in perspective: before then, Parma had been paying me 700 million lire ($550,000) a season, excluding bonuses (for the first year, 150 million lire ($120,000) if we won the Coppa Italia, 250 million lire ($200,000) for the UEFA Cup, and 500 ($400,000) for the Scudetto). All things considered, one fundamental truth is undeniable: Fenerbahçe S. K. was offering me a boatload of money.

  But that wasn’t what I was interested in. I’d only been coaching in Serie A for two years, not long enough to be able to risk stepping aside. I wanted to tell them no, but I had to figure out how. I had an idea: I’d keep raising my demands, until they got sick of it. “I want a villa on the beach.”

  Answer: Yes.

  “I want a car with a driver.”

  Answer: Yes.

  “You have to pay for all my air travel to and from Italy.”

  Answer: But of course.

  “I pick my own technical staff and no one else has any say in it.”

  Answer: We wouldn’t want it any other way.

  “I beg of you, stop giving me carpets.”

  That was almost asking too much, but in the end they gave in on that point, too. Ask and you shall receive. Evidently, I’d chosen the wrong tactic. It was a total defeat on all fronts. My visit was really nothing more than a courtesy call, but Fenerbahçe was determined to get my signature on a contract, cost what it may. They seemed to be saying: “You’re not leaving here until you sign our contract.” A prisoner without bars—okay, but not great.

  Luckily, even though I had been relieved of duty to make way for Alberto Malesani, my contract with Parma still had a year to run; that was what saved me. Or, at least, what saved me from lying. “I can’t sign anything official right now. Let me go back to Italy, it’ll only take me a few days to rescind my existing agreement, and then I’ll come back to see you.” That’s what I said, but in my mind there was a rider: “As if.” I managed to escape: Turkey–Emilia Romagna, a one-way ticket. There was just one thing left to do: inform Chairman Yildirim that, let us say, I had changed my mind. But I was too much of a chicken even for that: I had my wife call him and tell him on the phone. I was a little embarrassed at what I’d done.

  Still, he wasn’t giving up. He sent one of his emissaries to hunt me down, another one-way ticket: Istanbul to My House. The dreaded middleman Bilgiç arrived in Felegara by taxi while I was in my car, speeding back to Parma to keep from having to talk to him, like a thief in the night.

  Was I crazy? No, it was much simpler than that. I was just the new coach of Juventus. How new? A couple of hours, to tell the truth. Blame it on a phone call from Luciano Moggi, which I don’t think anyone wiretapped, that I received the day before I left on my little jaunt to Turkey. “Ciao, this is Luciano. I have to see you tomorrow.”

  “I can’t do it tomorrow, I’m going to Istanbul.”

  “To do what?”

  “There’s a football club there that wants to see me.”

  “Before you commit to anything, I need to talk to you. Call me as soon as you get back …”

  I figured he just wanted to talk to me about some player or other. As soon as I managed to elude the aggressive marking of the Turkish team, we made an appointment to meet the following day in Turin. That’s right, you guessed it: a secret meeting. We were supposed to meet in front of the Hotel Principi di Piemonte, a car was waiting for me, and I fell in line behind it, following it until we reached the home of Antonio Giraudo. I was sitting across from Antonio Giraudo, Luciano Moggi, and Roberto Bettega. The Triad, before me in the flesh. They wasted no time coming to the point: “We want you to become the next coach for Juve.”

  “When would this be?”

  “We know your contract with Parma still has a year to run, so from the coming season.”

  “Listen, though, don’t you have Lippi? There’s no one better than him.”

  “He’s not happy, he’s tired of being here, he’s decided this is his last year. So we thought of you.”

  What did I think? I must have thought they were crazy and,
as you know, it’s dangerous to contradict the mentally unstable, so I went along with them. After a few more hours of conversation, they had me sign their contract. First impression: three reliable, competent individuals, three talented executives.

  They wrote out the contract by hand on a sheet of letterhead stationery, blue ink on white paper, twenty-three lines in total, not including signatures. Here are a few passages:

  1) Signore Carlo Ancelotti will take on, with the responsibilities of coach, the technical management and training of the first team of Juventus F. C. beginning with the 1999–2000 championship season until 30 June 2001.

  2) For this position, Juventus F. C. will pay Signore Carlo Ancelotti the sum of Italian Lire 1,800,000 (one billion eight hundred million) [$1.5 million], net of withholding, for the soccer year of 1999–2000 and Italian Lire 1,800,000 (one billion eight hundred million) net of withholding, for the soccer year of 2000–2001.

  3) Signore Carlo Ancelotti assigns to Juventus F. C. the right to exercise an option for the athletic year of 2001–2002 at the salary, established as of the signing of this contract, of Italian Lire 2,000,000 (two billion) [$1.6 million] […].

  The numerical sums were written as shown above, missing a comma and three zeros, in millions, not billions: luckily, my bank account was safeguarded by the sums expressed in words, set in parentheses. Three signatures on the left and one signature on the right: Bettega and I signed with the same black ink, while Moggi and Giraudo signed in blue ink. I was going to be Lippi’s successor; it was written on that sheet of paper.

  I came home to Felegara, I summoned my family and friends, I was bursting with pride. Chest (and belly) protruding, I made the momentous announcement: “I’m the new Juventus manager.” They shouted back in unison: “Oh, go take a shit—va’ a cagher—you’ve lost your mind.” After that, I had to carry the contract with me in my jacket pocket. I had accepted an offer from Juventus, valid from the start of the following year, and no one believed a word I said. As it turned out, I wound up on the Juventus bench earlier than scheduled, in February 1999: Lippi was having problems, but that is another story.

  Every time I agreed to coach a new team, the decision was always accompanied by fireworks and occasionally by a mushroom cloud; in any case, it was never easy or simple. Except for the time I left Reggiana to go to Parma—I didn’t have to think twice about that one. For that matter, from the Italian national team—where I was the assistant coach to the Maestro Arrigo Sacchi—to Reggiana, I gave up a safe perch for an uncertain future. Between Parma and Juventus, I was escaping the pressing tactics of the Turks.

  Then came A. C. Milan in November 2001, and on that occasion I was fleeing the pursuit of Stefano Tanzi, who wanted to take me back to Parma. None of this is intentional, it just seems to happen to me; I move quicker than I mean to. Tanzi and I had a meeting on Friday and came to a verbal agreement; we agreed to meet at Parmalat headquarters the following Monday to get everything down in black and white. On Saturday, I rested up. On Sunday, I watched the Turin–Milan match on television with my old friend William Vecchi; and, to my surprise, I watched Stefano Tanzi announce on Domenica Sportiva that, beginning Tuesday, I was going to be his new coach. Every word was true. I guess Galliani was watching TV that Sunday, as well. On Monday morning, I took my son Davide to school; afterward I swung by Collecchio.

  “I’m sorry, Carletto, you’ll have to wait. Signore Tanzi is in a meeting. He’ll be another hour or so.”

  “No problem, I’m going home; I only live ten minutes away. When he’s free, give me a call and I’ll come right over.”

  I was in the car when my cell phone rang, I thought it was Tanzi, but I was wrong: “Hello, this is Galliani. Ancelotti, where are you? Have you already signed the contract with Parma?”

  “Not yet, but we’re about to sign.”

  “Stop what you’re doing, go home, lock the door and pull down the blinds. Wait for me. I’m on my way to your house, with Ariedo Braida. You have to come coach Milan, you’re replacing Fatih Terim.”

  Oh, right. Here we go again. The first thing I did when I got home was unplug all the phones. They pulled up with the contract, and they talked me into it in thirty seconds flat. I signed on the kitchen table. I was there from 6 November 2001 to 30 June 2004. It was the beginning of a love affair, as well as a story of victories and successes. The second chapter in a crazy passage of history, after my time at Milanello as a player. And the cause of a tremendous temper tantrum, absolutely justified, on Tanzi’s part.

  Then there is the story of Real Madrid: me and Florentino Pérez, tortellini y merengues, but I’ll tell that one later. I won’t run away, I promise.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Pig Is Sacred. And the Pig Can Coach.

  I scarf food down like a horse, and no one is happier than me. The champion of Italy, Europe, and the world; just take me to a trattoria, stand back, and watch. No one else can come close. I don’t care about the side dishes, the secret lies in the filling: inside of what I eat is what I really am. I’m a philosopher of ragù, with an idea befitting a Nobel laureate: it’s not the salami that hurts you, it’s the knife.

  One evening at the San Siro, I was continuing to field Clarence Seedorf, and some of the fans in the stands were voicing their disagreement, one gentleman louder than the others: “Go back to Parma and pig out on tortellini.”

  “And you go fuck yourself.”

  He was screaming in Italian, and I replied in proper French. I wasn’t defending Seedorf, it’s just that I can’t stand by and watch someone insult a perfectly good plate of tortellini.

  It takes me back to my childhood. I was born into a family of farmers, and it’s my memory of Sunday supper. A classic. Tortellini was the specialty of that day, only and exclusively that day, a sacred moment dedicated to my family, the air of home. Clean air. We were poor but polite, I don’t know if we were much to look at. Me, my sister Angela, papa Giuseppe and mamma Cecilia, grandpa Erminio (whom we called Carlino), and grandma Maria: the family grouped around the tureen full of steaming tortellini. Home and church, first Holy Communion and then Sunday supper, guests at one house or the other. Tortellini, wine, and pork, a blue-plate special that was free of charge. Pork, and lots of it, because that was what farm families ate where I come from. We raised pigs, took care of them for a year, slaughtered them in the heart of winter, and then stuffed ourselves on pork. It was good meat, we ate it 365 days a year, and no one ever had problems with cholesterol. In fact, if you ask me, they invented cholesterol later. What I’m trying to say is that if I think of a pig, I feel like I’m thinking of something nice, almost a sacred animal, like a cow in India, say, or else Zlatan Ibrahimović for an Inter fan.

  That’s not what the Juventus fans thought, though. I have a memory that comes back to me in a flash every so often. It was my very first week on the job in Turin, I was driving to the office, and in the middle of Piazza Crimea I saw an obelisk. Nice, very striking, but what I really noticed was the graffiti someone had spray-painted onto it: “A pig can’t coach.” Cuminciom ben, as they say in Turinese dialect—this is a nice beginning. Inside, waiting for me, were all the soccer hooligan leaders, summoned by Moggi: “You have to make peace with Ancelotti, you understand?” No, they didn’t understand, it doesn’t do a bit of good to explain anything to them, you’d just be wasting money on a tutor.

  I played for A. S. Roma in the 1980s, and our adversary was Juve. I played for Milan, and our chief opponent was Juve. I coached Parma, and in the Italian championship for the Scudetto we played against Juve. They only know me, and can only see me, as an enemy. End of story. That wasn’t going to change, and it never will. They’re just a few miserable losers, a few bad apples, surrounded by a city full of wonderful people—but that’s cold comfort. The middle finger that I raised in the general direction of the Curva Scirea (the notoriously violent section of the stands at the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin) one evening, when I was the coach of Milan, was dedicated to them.
They lacked imagination, it was always the same refrain: “A pig can’t coach.” It just annoys the hell out of me. It shows an intolerable lack of respect toward pigs.

  Because a pig can coach. Definitely. And a pig can win, despite everything those hooligans might say, and in defiance of the much more likable skepticism of my two friends from Parma, diehard Juventus fans, and the first people I thought of after we won the Champions League final against Juventus at Old Trafford. God bless Shevchenko’s last penalty kick in Manchester. I bought two salamis, gift wrapped them with a lovely bow, and delivered them in person, with a pair of handwritten dedications: “To you, the salami; to me, the Coppa.” They laughed, they took it in the right spirit. Because they know me better than most. They understand the way I operate: I love to eat pork coppa, it’s a delicious cold cut from home, and I eat it when I can, but in Italian the Coppa also means the championship cup, and any opportunity I see to win one, I take. And I do it with all the determination of my family, with a philosophy of life that comes from my homeland. Pork and tortellini: when it comes down to it, no matter what else happens, you always come around to the same point of departure.

  If it hadn’t been for the hard work of my mother and father—mamma and papa—I’d be no different from anyone else. In the old days, you had to sacrifice: you worked the land with your hands and a few tools; there was no farm machinery, the days were long, and the work was endless. What you sow you can only hope to harvest a year later. There was no instant gratification; you had to be patient, you couldn’t lose heart when the going got tough.