Carlo Ancelotti_ The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius - Alessandro Alciato [9]
Again, the topic is all soccer, all the time. The inevitable question: how would I change the way Chelsea plays, if we were to come to an understanding?
“Chairman, your team is very physical, they need to field a more diverse array of skills.”
I come up with a couple of names, Franck Ribéry and Xabi Alonso, players that would give the team a distinct advantage. He comes up with a third name: Andriy Shevchenko, a player he clearly cares about deeply: “I can’t figure out why he’s not playing, ever since we brought him to England, he’s just not the real Sheva anymore, I don’t know why he’s having so much trouble.”
“Chairman, I can’t possibly tell you the reason.” So we talk, and we talk, and we talk some more. I’m very comfortable chatting with Abramovich. He’s not intimidating, even when he says to me, with a slight catch in his voice: “Look, we just lost out on the Champions League finals, we just got bounced out of the championship, I have nothing to be happy about. Chelsea just seems to lack personality. My ambition is to win every game my team plays, but right now I just don’t recognize my team.” He cares very much about winning and about playing the game with style. Again, he reminds me of someone. There go another forty minutes, like a flash. “Thanks very much, Ancelotti, we’ll be in touch.” Not a word about money. OK, I can read between the lines. There’s no opening just now.
I walk upstairs, I see daylight. In the true sense of the word. But I no longer see Pastorello, nor do I see my friend and colleague and fellow coach. They’ve all vanished. So I vanish, too. I go out for a walk, and Paris beckons. A couple of hours go by, my phone rings.
“Hello, this is Adriano Galliani: how’s Paris?” Pause. The vice-president of A. C. Milan. “How’s your little fling going?”
He already knows everything. Caught red-handed, like Moratti and Mourinho. It wasn’t a fling, nothing happened, now it’s clear to me, and I tell him so immediately: “I came to have a meeting with Abramovich. When the owner of such an important team calls you, the very least you can do is go and listen to what he has to say.”
“But you’re not going anywhere.”
“I have no desire to go anywhere.”
I was curious to meet a major figure in my world, sure, but I didn’t feel any burning need to leave Milan. Right then and there, I was getting along fine with my team.
I walk on into the sweet Parisian night, a perfect opportunity to take a few steps back into the past, to remember. To remember one thing in particular: every time I’ve faced a serious decision as a coach, it’s been challenging. They are always delicate situations. They can even verge on the comical. Like the time I took to my heels like a thief in the night, just to avoid signing a contract.
CHAPTER 4
Turkish Delights
Everything began in Istanbul, and from the very beginning I should have known that the city has a curse on it; that is, until someone proves otherwise. When I was relieved of my duties at Parma (June 1998, just as the second year in the three-year contract was up), the Turks showed up. Unlike the cliché, they didn’t smoke. I did the smoking, actually. But they were generous with their money. Just three days after the final championship match, I heard from Fenerbahçe S. K., a team with twenty million fans, all of Asian Turkey at its feet. They really wanted me, that much was clear. The company that owned the team was well capitalized; the chairman, Aziz Yildirim, ran a high-end real estate company that ran Turkey’s NATO bases. He was a dynamic and competent person, and at that moment I was his personal objective. With one major sticking point: I really wasn’t very excited about the idea.
They came to visit me at my home, and they wheedled a promise out of me: “All right, I’ll come visit your training grounds for three days, without obligations. But the trip must be kept secret.” Just like in Paris. The secret journey,