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By Root 398 0

a question: “Will you introduce me to your grandmother?” But I didn’t have the courage. I have an abiding veneration for Queen Elizabeth, I don’t know her personally but whenever I see her on television I find her fascinating as a person. I’d like to meet her, though I don’t know how I could arrange it. It’s not like I can call Buckingham Palace and ask to be put through. “Hello, excuse me, this is Carlo Ancelotti—you know, the one who eats too much. Could I speak to Elizabeth, please?” It’s just not done. So all I can do is keep winning, and hope that she notices. With her grandson watching, we won the Cup, beating Portsmouth 1-0 after hitting the goalposts five times in the first half.

There are days when it feels like I’m living a dream. I would make the same decision—to coach Chelsea—a hundred times, the same decision every time. Even if getting knocked out of the running for the Champions League against Inter is a regret that will always be with me. Against Inter, not against Mourinho. In Italy, we said plenty of harsh things to one another, we didn’t particularly like each other (read this book, you’ll understand …), but ever since I’ve been in England my point of view has changed. He made history at the club where I work, his archive of training sessions and exercises has been useful to me more than once, and so he deserves total and rapt attention. We decided to call a truce—a truce signed and agreed before the first leg of our match in the Champions League, in Milan. We met in a corridor at the San Siro, and we made a pact: “No more bickering, no more controversy.” Six words, a handshake, and in ten seconds we had an understanding. People often ask me: why did you get knocked out of the Champions League against Inter? Answer: it was a matter of details. There aren’t any other truths, there’s nothing else to be said. I don’t think José and I will ever be friends, but now we have a real and reciprocal respect. When I won the Premiership, he wrote me a text message: “Champagne.” When he won the Scudetto in Italy, I sent him a text message back: “Champagne, but not too much.”

No matter how you look at it, it always comes back to food and drink. Chelsea Football Club, with lots of bubbles. My new life. And the taxi cab where it all started.

CHAPTER 3

Summoned for a Meeting with Abramovich. It Begins.

I have to say, this taxi driver is starting to make me uneasy. He’s staring into the rearview mirror, but what he’s really doing is monitoring my expression. He’s looking for answers, answers I can’t give him, at least not yet. I’m traveling incognito, rushing headlong into some kind of illicit affair, or at least that’s the impression I’m giving. It feels odd—unlike me. The coach of the A. C. Milan team on an undercover mission. My heartbeat is normal; that’s probably because my mind is busy. Working, thinking. And even, every so often, playing.

Here I am, 007 on a top-secret mission for myself. Sitting behind a driver with the face of an assassin. Perhaps it all makes sense, all things considered, because in a way it’s my life that’s at stake. My future. It’s as if I’m riding in a time machine, not a taxi cab: from Milanello to Stamford Bridge, from yesterday to today, from one (red and black) devil to another, one I don’t yet know. Oh, I forgot to mention, I’m in Paris, and this taxi is taking me to my appointment with Roman Abramovich, the self-made Russian billionaire and, more importantly—as far as I’m concerned—the deep-pocketed owner of Chelsea Football Club, who’s looking for a new coach.

No one else knows, but we’ve already had one meeting, a couple of weeks ago. It was in Switzerland, in a grand hotel in Geneva, not far from the city center; I’d tell you its name, I really would, but I swear I can’t remember it. I must be getting old. Charlie Stillitano organized the meeting; he’s a friend of mine who works in the world of soccer in the United States. He knows Peter Kenyon, Abramovich’s chief executive at Chelsea. As soon as the soccer season ended, apparently, Kenyon said he wanted a meeting with