Carlo Ancelotti_ The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius - Alessandro Alciato [67]
The other person I talked to at Real Madrid—or El Madrid, as they tend to call it—was José Ángel Sánchez, who was the de facto chief administrative officer of the club. He was in charge of contracts; he handled the dubloons and the major decisions. Everyone was in agreement: I was going to be the new coach.
“Ancelotti, in the next couple of hours, we’re going to send you a fax at your office in Milanello.”
“No, listen, it might be better if you sent it to my house.”
Yes, that way we could avert a scene out of a horror film: a sheet of paper feeds out of the fax machine, and the walls of Milanello begin to crumble. Down tumbles the photograph of Berlusconi, followed by the pictures of me, and all the photographs of the triumphs of Milan, the rossineri. One wall collapses against the next and takes it down in turn, like dominoes falling. Summon an exorcist, put everyone into quarantine. In that dire setting, even the ghost that Capello claimed he heard every night would reveal himself, clanking his chains. No question, that was a scenario I’d rather avoid. And, in fact, they sent the pre-contract to my house in Felegara, where framed pictures and walls remained soundly in place, guarded by my watchdogs, one of whom is named Nelson. (Any reference to Dida is completely and fondly intentional.)
Six sheets of paper, total; simple, without Real Madrid letterhead. In it was everything they had promised me. Everything. I didn’t ask for the moon, but I came close. And they kept their word. I never had any reason to doubt they would. They were reliable people. I understood that from the very beginning. I signed it and returned it to sender. I sat staring at the fax machine; as it swallowed the sheets of paper, it looked like a hungry child. I may even have emitted an excited “¡Olé!”
At the bottom of that pre-contract there was a rider. It was a clause on which I had insisted: “This contract will become valid only once A. C. Milan gives its consent.” There was still one major step. At that point, I became an ambassador on my own behalf; I called Galliani, with a serious voice that was nothing like me, and I was concise and laconic: “Signore Galliani, I need to see you.”
“Come when you like. My office at headquarters, in Via Turati.”
There, Galliani is playing on home turf; he has all his familiar moves, he even knows where to seat people with whom he has to negotiate—or arm wrestle. When Gattuso was on the verge of leaving the team to go to Bayern Munich, for example, Galliani summoned him to Milan and locked him up in the trophy room. “Rino, look around you carefully, and then let’s talk it over.” He convinced him to stay by wearing him out.
That day, I started talking first, beating Galliani to the punch: “Listen, I asked for this meeting because I have a major opportunity. I’ve had an offer, apparently, from Real Madrid.” I qualified it in an attempt at diplomacy. “It’s an opportunity that I’d really like to take advantage of, because we’re talking about one of the most important soccer clubs on earth. Here, I’ve won and won and won again. I’ve been here as a player and as a coach, I know everything and everyone; maybe it’s a good time to seek greener pastures. I see it as a challenge, it could really teach me a lot, it would be exciting. If you could just see your way to …”
I was starting to blabber on, and I also had a vaguely doleful expression on my face, as if to say: make new friends, but keep the