Carlo Ancelotti_ The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius - Alessandro Alciato [36]
“Claudio, did you give the players their massages?”
“Yes, Arrigo.”
“And how are their muscles?”
“Muscles, Arrigo?”
They were completely wiped out. Cooked. The players just managed to stay on their feet, out of inertia, or perhaps by some miracle. They had been playing matches in conditions of 100 percent humidity. During halftime, the players—Nicola Berti, especially—all came back to the locker room saying the same thing: “Substitute me. I’m not going back out there.” They were red as lobsters. We’d put them in ice baths and try to get them back into shape. We played the first game, against the Republic of Ireland, in New York. We got to the stadium and went straight out onto the field. You couldn’t survive for long. It was 108 degrees, 90 percent humidity. Those geniuses from FIFA had decided to schedule the game for noon. To encourage the players, Carmignani and I lay down on the grass and exclaimed: “How nice. At last, it’s comfortable today. Cooler than usual, isn’t it?” At that point, the players took a good hard look at us and decided that the sun had fried our brains. After the World Cup of 1994, I worked with Sacchi for another year, for the qualifying matches for the European Cup. Then Reggiana called me.
The American World Cup was fantastic—definitely more enjoyable than the two World Cups I experienced as a player, Mexico 1986 as a tourist and Italy 1990 without much excitement. In the United States, it was quite another thing—an endless thrill of happiness and joy. That’s why I’d like to experience another World Cup, as the coach of an African national team (there’s time for the Italian national team yet); that is, a team with nothing but potential—a team that remains to be discovered. A team that’s not short of talent or quality, and maybe one with a big shot from the Ivory Coast. Me and Drogba—now there’s a wonderful story in the making …
CHAPTER 14
Wobbly Benches
There are times when I stand up in front of a full-length mirror and act like a contortionist. I twist my neck and I stare at my ass. My fat butt cheeks aren’t a particularly edifying spectacle, but that’s not really the point. I look at them and I think: “There are so many wounds back there, even if you can’t see them.” One tremor after another, tearing through my skin. An earthquake, with an epicenter right there, sharp and violent, without a shock wave, and over time it’s taught me a lesson: my ass is earthquake-proof. Sat on benches that have never stopped swaying and shaking, that ass has had to withstand every level of the Richter scale. Seismic shifts and jolts of voltage. A wave of irritation and annoyance that just won’t stop: first an itch, then a pinch, and things went downhill from there. Everyone else is seated comfortably, and I’m perched on a volcano. Always have been.
I live with the threat of being fired. After I left Sacchi’s Nazionale—the Italian national team—I became a real coach at A. C. Reggiana, in Serie B: after just three months, they were ready to fire me. There’s always a first time. By the seventh week, we were in last place, three defeats and four draws; no one was doing worse than us. We were a ship of fools, and the captain was me. As if that wasn’t enough, I was disqualified from Federation standing because I didn’t have the proper certificate to coach a team. I found my assistant coach, Giorgio Ciaschini, while leafing through the pages of the Almanacco Illustrate del Calcio—the Illustrated Soccer Almanac. The fitness coach was a retired discus thrower, Cleante Zat. The team boasted