”Ciao. You ready?” says Carlo Ancelotti as he plonks himself down on one of the large white sofas in the lounge next to the players’ restaurant at Milanello, AC Milan’s team retreat near the Swiss border. This is not the clean-shaven, lightly gelled matchday Ancelotti wearing the Dolce & Gabbana team suit and a slightly edgy expression.
Instead, ”Carletto” has a day’s stubble on more than a hint of a double chin, tousled greying hair, both hands stuffed deep into his pockets, at ease in a dark bomber jacket and grey cords. He has the appearance of a comfortable, successful 45-year-old relaxing at home.
No wonder. At this ”home” he is surrounded by a close footballing family that includes many former teammates with whom he has worked, off and on, for nearly 20 years. Ancelotti played in the great AC Milan side that won the European Cup in 1989 and 1990 — the last team to win it two years running.
Of those who lined up alongside Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten in those finals, eight are still on the staff at Milan. Six are coaching and two, Paolo Maldini and Alessandro ”Billy” Costacurta, are still playing. Ancelotti reels off the names of those still in the family, using his fingers to count them.
Franco Baresi coaches Milan’s under-16 Primavera side, assisted by former defender Filippo Galli. Angelo Colombo heads the youth sector, Alberigo Evani coaches the under-13s. ”Then,” Ancelotti adds modestly, ”there’s me.” And his assistant, Mauro Tassotti.
Milan’s ”family” theme even extends to Ancelotti’s 15-year-old son Davide, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of foreign players. The youngster once embarrassed Papi in front of journalists by contradicting his denials about buying Jaap Stam, blurting out: ”But Papi, why don’t you buy him, you’re always talking about him.”
Davide is steadily progressing through Milan’s youth system, and has graduated from Evani’s under-13s to Baresi’s Primaveras.
”It’s his first year in the Primavera of a big team, and he’s really happy,” says his proud father. ”They don’t train here. He stays at a college near Milano during the week and then on Fridays comes home to Parma.”
Could father find himself selecting son in Serie A in the future?
”It could happen,” says Ancelotti, laughing. ”It would be great for Davide, but I don’t choose the promotions in the youth-team sector.”
As for the present, youth is barely getting a look-in at Milan, where there are more over-30s than under-30s. Costacurta is 38, Maldini, seeking his fifth European champion’s medal, is 36. One of Ancelotti’s back-four options — Maldini-Costacurta-Nesta-Cafu — has the combined age of 136. Before last month’s first leg in Manchester, many observers reduced the tie to ”United’s young strikers versus Milan’s old legs”.
Yet the quality and timing of Maldini’s interventions were awesome and his almost telepathic partnership with Costacurta was a great help in the closing minutes. How do they do it?
”Well, they have the advantage of their experience,” says Ancelotti. ”And they have the advantage of their [athletic] preparation. Each player does individualised training, working on specific features. This is much more advanced than even just five years ago.” The club have physios and computer programmes planning individualised weekly diets and training regimes in meticulous detail.
At Old Trafford, Brazilian defender Cafu stepped in for Stam, the victim of a muscle injury in the pre-match warm-up. The Dutch defender returned for Tuesday’s 1-0 win that put the Italian side through 2-0.
In both games Cafu lived up to his nickname, ”pendolino” — commuter — constantly chugging back and forth along the right touchline, despite Ancelotti repeatedly yelling from the dug-out for him to stay back. ”He’s very generous, very exuberant, sometimes too much so.”
Rarely can a game plan have gone so well as in that single-goal win in the first leg. ”Yes, we succeeded in breaking up Manchester’s usual game of building wave after wave of pressure until you crack.”
The loss of Andriy Shevchenko to injury — the Ukrainian striker also missed Tuesday’s match — meant Ancelotti played a single front-man, ”and our five-man midfield thwarted United’s supply lines”.
There was no complacency at the San Siro, though. ”Oh, no. I’ve come back from Manchester with a 1-1 before,” he says, recalling United’s memorable 3-2 second-leg victory at Stadio delle Alpi when he was Juventus coach in 1999.
He was sacked at Juve despite coming second twice in Serie A in consecutive seasons. ”At Juve that doesn’t count. At Juve you have to win.” He is full of praise for Sir Alex Ferguson, ”someone I hold in high esteem. For someone to be in the post for so long reflects well upon the club itself, and upon Mr Ferguson. Being there for 18 years means he’s done great work. And he has had a lot of success. In Italy a coach who didn’t win trophies straight away wouldn’t survive.”
Ancelotti finished playing at Milan in 1992, coaching Reggiana, Parma and Juventus before returning to Milanello in 2001. In the meantime football had undergone the television revolution and the Champions League had mushroomed.
Is the next step a fully fledged European league? ”It’s already here, isn’t it?” he says, that left eyebrow rising into a high arc for the first time, a nervous giveaway when he senses tricky questioning. In the most combative of Serie A press conferences it can stay raised for minutes on end.
”It seems we already have a European league, effectively. The Champions League is the most fascinating of the competitions in my opinion.”
But it overshadows the domestic competitions. ”A little, yes, a little. But I don’t think that their appeal will disappear.” He still favours having two European group stages to produce more matches between the biggest sides. ”But you’d have to reduce something elsewhere. It’d be necessary to have less games in the national leagues.” Another debate in Italy this season concerns saturation television coverage.
Many Serie A matches have been played in half-empty stadiums, and crowds are far lower than in Germany and England. One of the reasons is that every game is televised live. Given that Ancelotti’s ultimate boss, the Milan president, is Silvio Berlusconi — who also happens to be Italy’s prime minister and the country’s leading media magnate — he is used to treading a fine line in the television-versus-empty-seats debate.
”I experienced football when there wasn’t television,” he says. ”For someone like me, who grew up in a little town, it was difficult. All you saw was half an hour on television each week. Now you can see the big matches, English football, the Spanish championship.” Even Serie A players are complaining about the constant switches in kick-off times and suchlike. ”Yes, for a fan who goes to the stadium, certainly it can be a problem,” he says, ”but for the fan who stays at home it’s a good thing.”
Any adverse effect upon attendances doesn’t worry him. ”The big matches are always full. Those matches that are, let’s say, less attractive, the people prefer to watch on television. But the passion for football, the passion that the Italian fan has, will always be there.”
Ancelotti thinks he saw the future of football in Manchester, and that could help fill the seats again.
”There’s a different culture, the people go to the stadium earlier, they have tea, coffee, then after they stay for dinner. In Italy it doesn’t happen because the stadiums aren’t set up for it, there isn’t the culture. People go to the match and go home.
”After the Manchester match I had to do a little detour to get to the press conference, and I saw the restaurant. It was absolutely packed. That’s unheard of here. Manchester have the highest revenues in Europe, exactly because of this, making the stadium a place you can stay.”
Ancelotti is sticking with his prediction that a team beginning with ‘m’ will win the Champions League.
”Milan or Munich,” he says. The bookmakers say it will be the family men of Milan. — Â