Carlo Ancelotti_ The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius - Alessandro Alciato [13]
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.
They worked the real fields, I worked the soccer fields. Their season culminated in a harvest, my season aimed at a Scudetto, an Italian championship, or else a cup of one kind or another—maybe European, maybe World. Worlds apart, and yet not that different after all. I was raised by a couple of excellent coaches. The product that brought in the most money for them in the old days was milk, but they never saw the money until the dairy sold the finished cheese. It might take a year or even a year and a half. In the meantime, while you were waiting to be paid, you had to be patient and make sure you had resources to fall back on. The art of keeping your cool was essential, and I learned it from them. It was an art that came in handy when I was injured as a player, and it’s been crucial to me as a coach countless times. It helps me to keep things on track when I have to manage a situation and keep from lashing out in anger—say if I’m being pressured by a player’s attitude, or sniping from fans or the ownership, or else the taunts of the media. You have to stay sensible, or you’re done for.
The way you handle a group is the way you are, deep down. I prefer to talk with my players, not shout at them—though, after certain games, it does happen. I feel like a member of the group, inside it, not above it or beneath it. If someone has a problem, they’re welcome to vent. If someone is angry, they can