MADRID — Carlo Ancelotti had warned us earlier than the sport: “I get emotional rapidly. My grandfather did, and my father did too. So if I cry, there isn’t any downside, I will not cover it.” So when the tears got here, on Saturday on the Santiago Bernabéu, it was no shock. Actual Madrid had simply overwhelmed Actual Sociedad 2-0 of their final match of the LaLiga season. However the recreation itself did not matter, and neither did the outcome.
Because the stadium’s large screens confirmed video highlights of Ancelotti’s six years a Madrid throughout his two spells as coach the digital camera lower away to indicate him on the touchline, taking all of it in. His eyes have been already crimson, as he puffed out his cheeks, making an attempt to compose himself. He wiped away his tears and virtually reluctantly stepped out onto the pitch, taking a microphone to deal with the group.
“It has been an honour, a pleasure, to teach this membership,” he mentioned. “It is an unforgettable story. No one will overlook Karim [Benzema]’s three objectives towards Paris Saint-Germain [in 2022]. No one will overlook Rodrygo’s two objectives towards Manchester Metropolis [that same year]. No one will overlook Joselu’s two objectives [against Bayern Munich, in 2024]. And I will not overlook day by day I’ve spent right here. Ciao.”
Ancelotti, probably the most profitable coach in Actual Madrid’s historical past, was saying goodbye, and he was feeling the load of the second. The timing may be proper, and his vacation spot — Brazil — could not be extra thrilling. However it’s nonetheless a wrench for Ancelotti to go away Madrid, town he calls dwelling, and the membership he loves.
In the long run, he wasn’t alone. Luka Modric, arguably the membership’s best-ever midfielder, was taking part in his final recreation on the Bernabéu. Earlier than the sport, twin banners have been unfurled at both finish of the stadium. “Thanks, Carletto,” one mentioned. “Thanks, legend,” mentioned the opposite, for Modric.
However Modric will play for Madrid on the FIFA Membership World Cup this summer season, earlier than he departs. For Ancelotti, that is it: his final Actual Madrid recreation, his final beginning XI, his final half-time workforce speak, the final of what he mentioned should have been 700 information conferences.
Ancelotti has left Actual Madrid earlier than. He was first fired on Could 25, 2015. When requested why, membership president Florentino Pérez famously mentioned “I do not know.” Actually, the explanation was easy: Madrid hadn’t received a significant trophy that season, so Ancelotti was gone. Ten years later, virtually to the day, he is leaving once more, for a similar motive.
However Ancelotti might be a part of this membership without end now. No supervisor has received greater than Ancelotti’s 15 trophies right here. Solely Miguel Muñoz — who was coach for 15 years — has managed the workforce in additional video games. “My bond with Actual Madrid is everlasting,” Ancelotti mentioned on Friday, in a farewell assertion on social media.
And so are the reminiscences, the moments, and the memes. Ancelotti, sporting sun shades and smoking a cigar, on the workforce’s open-top bus after profitable the league in 2022. Ancelotti, relentlessly chewing gum on the touchline, a behavior he picked up after quitting smoking. Ancelotti, elevating one, iconic eyebrow, earlier than effortlessly dealing with one other journalist’s query, in his personal, idiosyncratic mixture of Spanish and Italian.
As Ancelotti mentioned, no one who was current for Actual Madrid’s inexplicable run of UEFA Champions League comebacks on the Bernabéu in 2022 will ever overlook them. “Clearly, the primary reminiscences [that come to mind] are the comebacks,” he had mentioned on Friday. “The nights towards Chelsea, PSG, Metropolis, are without end.”
He was unfairly pigeonholed as an professional man supervisor however restricted tactician. It was a picture he resented, and fought towards. “All people acknowledges that I am incredible at [man] administration, however this workforce is nicely coached,” he mentioned, delaying the top of a information convention to make a degree, in April 2023. “If we win the Copa [del Rey], we’ll have received each doable trophy in two seasons. Some groups do not do this in a lifetime.”
Regardless of his status, Ancelotti wasn’t solely a few mild contact. This can be a coach who reinvented Ángel Di María as a box-to-box midfielder to win the Champions League in 2013-14; made Karim Benzema a Ballon d’Or-winning purpose machine in 2021-22; turned Jude Bellingham right into a free-scoring, line-leading false No. 9 in 2023-24.
He discovered tactical options to all types of issues, till he was confronted with one he could not repair: the right way to match Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Bellingham and Rodrygo into this season’s workforce, whereas sustaining the admirable “collective dedication” that had received Madrid the double a 12 months earlier.
“Actual Madrid is a demanding membership, nevertheless it was to be,” Ancelotti mentioned this week. “Its historical past does not permit it to do issues some other method.” And meaning Ancelotti is leaving what may be his final membership job, to take Brazil into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with considered one of his former gamers, Xabi Alonso, moving into his sneakers.
Sure, this season has been a transparent failure by Actual Madrid requirements. However that will not detract from Ancelotti’s legacy. His second act, with 11 trophies — together with two Champions Leagues — in 4 years, has made positive of that. And it is all of the extra spectacular for being so sudden, a wonderful accident.
When Zinedine Zidane walked away in Could 2021, offended at a scarcity of backing from the membership, Ancelotti wasn’t on Madrid’s managerial shortlist. His first spell, between 2013 and 2015, had introduced La Décima, the membership’s tenth European Cup. However it hadn’t ended nicely. There was unhappiness on the method his sacking was dealt with. And anyway, that was six years in the past. Ancelotti was at Everton now, and seen by virtually all people as nearing the top of his top-level profession.
Ancelotti wasn’t prepared to simply accept that. He has since defined that, in a dialog with the membership about doable signings for Everton, he advised himself as Zidane’s substitute. What adopted was like a dream. In his first season again, these comebacks — and Benzema’s objectives — received Madrid the Champions League, and LaLiga.
The following season was harder; Ancelotti virtually misplaced his job in 2023, when he was first tempted by Brazil. As a substitute, he signed a brand new deal, after which 2023-24 was close to impeccable: one other double, one other Champions League. It might need been Ancelotti’s greatest comeback of all. He referred to as it a “10 out of 10” season.
However as Ancelotti admitted after that Champions League closing at Wembley, there may be “steady demand” at Actual Madrid. “We’re by no means happy,” he mentioned. And so this season’s failure calls for adjustments, and considered one of them is the supervisor.
The issues in 2024-25 have been nicely documented. They started final summer season, when essential gamers left, and weren’t changed. It wasn’t simply Toni Kroos, whose absence has been felt most keenly; it was membership captain Nacho, and underrated ‘Plan B’ heart ahead Joselu. Sure, one of many world’s greatest gamers arrived, in Mbappé. However in different areas, in midfield and protection, the squad was weaker.
Sources informed ESPN that Ancelotti had pushed for signings in non-public, however in public he has refused to criticise the membership’s inaction. “Since I have been right here, Actual Madrid have signed [Eduardo] Camavinga, [Antonio] Rüdiger, [Aurélien] Tchouaméni, Bellingham, Mbappé,” he mentioned this week. “Might I ask for extra [signings]? No.”
Worse was to comply with when arguably the workforce’s two greatest defenders, Dani Carvajal and Éder Militão, have been dominated out with long-term accidents. By the top of the season, all 4 of Madrid’s first-choice again 4 have been unavailable. And the absence of Carvajal, added to these of Kroos and Nacho, went far past what he gives on the pitch. Gamers who have been leaders and position fashions for the subsequent technology have been gone.
As early as Madrid’s first league recreation of the season, on Aug. 18, 2024, away at Mallorca — a flat 1-1 draw — Ancelotti was conscious of an issue. “The defending wasn’t good,” he mentioned. “It was onerous for us to win the ball after shedding it. Once I speak about defending, we’re speaking about angle and collective dedication. The workforce was too open.”
It was a message aimed on the gamers, which by no means appeared to get by. “[The forwards] have completed a incredible job in assault, however the workforce wants their defensive assist too,” Ancelotti mentioned in February. “We have lacked a little bit of steadiness within the workforce… It is a collective downside.” The accidents, added to the squad’s preexisting flaws, would have been troublesome for any coach to beat. However that hasn’t shielded Ancelotti from criticism. It is a coach’s job to get the most effective out of the gamers at their disposal. Ancelotti has been working with a workforce assembled at enormous expense — boasting three gamers who completed within the high six in final 12 months’s Ballon d’Or — and so they have underperformed.
Nowhere was that extra evident than Madrid’s 4 Clásico losses this season, overwhelmed 4-0, 5-2, 3-2 and 4-3 by Barcelona. That, added to the workforce’s complete 5-1 mixture defeat to Arsenal within the Champions League quarterfinals, meant there was little doubt that Ancelotti can be leaving, a 12 months earlier than his contract was attributable to expire in June 2026. The one query was when, and the way, his departure can be made official.
Brazil’s hurry to have a brand new coach in place led to a weird situation the place the Brazilian Soccer Confederation introduced Ancelotti’s exit on Could 12, virtually two weeks earlier than the membership did. It made for an ungainly scenario for Ancelotti; he dealt with it as greatest he may.
“If you arrive at Actual Madrid, that in the future it is over,” he mentioned, a day after CBF had made his signing public. “I could not be Actual Madrid coach without end. … It may be that the membership wants recent impetus. There is not any want for drama. … Possibly it was the time for a change.”
Ancelotti has mocked ideas that taking a harder strategy along with his gamers might need yielded totally different outcomes. “I’ve acquired offended [with the players] quite a bit this season, however for me it is about having a relationship on the identical degree, and meaning respecting, and being revered,” he mentioned in April. “Individuals have mentioned ‘use the whip’ extra. However I can not do this. You’d should signal one other coach. For me, that is not the method.”
His status will not undergo due to what occurred this season; if something, the predictably dignified method by which he has dealt with his farewell has added to it. “Individuals can have their opinion — optimistic or damaging — of me as a coach,” he mentioned on Friday. “However I would reasonably be remembered as an excellent particular person.”
