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By Root 345 0

all gathered in the locker room of our training grounds in Cobham. The venerable old men all spoke—Terry, Drogba, Cech, and Lampard (another magnificent example of English leadership; when I see him on the field, it makes me happy). I was proud of us in that twenty minutes, we understood that we had lost a great deal but that we could win much, much more. I was very clear in what I had to say: “The Premiership and the FA Cup are still ours for the taking. Only six teams have managed to pull off a double in 140 years, but boys, it’s our turn now.” The plan—and it wasn’t exactly a secret plan—was to deflect attention from the Champions League and focus our energies on a new target. “We’re eleven games from the end of the season, and if we play them well we can go down in history.” At that point, we pulled out our times table. Numbers and statistics, written so clearly that no one could possibly misunderstand. There were only a few numbers, simple, fundamental sums that we needed to keep in mind. The number of training sessions remaining: 50. The number of days we could still devote to achieving our objectives: 60, more or less. The number of games left to play: 11.

The first game was against Blackburn, and to tell the truth, the final score of 1-1 did sort of scare me. Then we exploded like an atomic bomb: 5-0 against Portsmouth, 7-1 against Aston Villa, 2-1 away to Manchester United. All magic numbers that made our times table look pretty special. Our success at Old Trafford was the one that got us the League title, even though in the end Ray Wilkins and I were forced to drink to our victory alone. As is the tradition, a few minutes after the final whistle we went to Sir Alex’s room to drink the usual glass of wine. We walked in, and silence reigned. He sat there staring at a television screen; the set was tuned to a horse race, his greatest love. We were strictly relegated to the background, to some place beyond and behind the background. We stood awkwardly for a while without saying a word, uncertain what to do, and finally did what we had come to do: we drank a glass of wine, to our own health. Bye-bye. Even though I won each of the three games I played against him that season, I still consider Ferguson to be a master of soccer, a teacher in my life, an example I have always looked up to, a colleague to emulate, and in fact, in some ways, unattainable. (Unattainable in the sense that I don’t have a passion for racehorses.) Before heading back to Stamford Bridge, we took on Aston Villa in the FA Cup: 3-0. Then in the League again: 1-0 at Bolton, we took a beating from Tottenham, we gave 7 to Stoke, then 2-0 against Liverpool, and 8-0 against Wigan. We became Champions of England, I was a foreign king in a friendly country. A slightly tipsy king, if you want to know the truth, because I’ve only seen as much beer in one place as there was in our locker room a few times. The boys were dancing to rap music; I gave it a try too, but without much luck—I have a hard time rhyming credibly in English. I wasn’t thinking all that clearly, and that was when I decided to make a little speech to my team: “Carissimi signori, the time has come for you to start learning Italian. We’re colonizing you now. I train Chelsea Champions, Capello is the manager of the National Team …” Obi Mikel, Joe Cole, and Drogba (who is a machine on the field), Malouda (the player who most impressed me with the way he improved) all gave me their approval, in their way: “Oh, you’re right, Carlo, e che cazzo …” I must have missed something, apparently. Eccheccazzo sì—Italian for “what the fuck”—they knew Italian better than I did. Couldn’t they have told me before?

We each pulled out our times tables. We realized that there was still a problem left to solve, the result of the FA Cup final. From which I cherish one memory in particular: Prince William saying hello before the game, with the teams already lined up on the field at Wembley. I introduced the players to him, one by one, and after that he simply said, “Good luck.” For a minute I wanted to reply with