The Italian Carlo Ancelotti will not enhance his rich resume, at least this season, as he eliminated the most crowned coach in the European Champions League in football (4) with his Spanish team, Real Madrid, on Wednesday in the semi-finals, but his near future appears within the walls of the royal club. “I don’t want to listen to this issue anymore,” commented Florentino Perez, president of the Royal Club, on May 6, after his team won the King’s Cup against Osasuna (2-1), ending speculation about the future of the powerfully chasing coach from Brazil.
Nothing changed after that. However, Real Madrid ended a regular season, after losing its two titles in the Champions League, with a severe loss against Manchester City, England, 0-4 on Wednesday (1-1 in the first leg), and the domestic league in favor of its rivals, Barcelona. After winning the local cup title, the only one missing from his coffers, the Italian “Meester” will have won six titles with Real in 475 days: the League, the Cup, the Champions League, the Spanish Super, the European Super and the Club World Cup. All this in less than two seasons, a precedent for a Real Madrid coach.
With his cool, calm personality, his dancing eyebrows and his talent as a speaker, he contained the fans, the journalists, the officials and most importantly: the players.
“The players are my friends,” Carlito said a year ago during the La Liga title celebration in May 2022. And if he had ever announced that he would end his career at Real Madrid, the Italian coach admitted that he might have been hasty.
Brazil is chasing him fiercely, after the departure of its coach, Tite, following an ordinary World Cup that witnessed its qualification to the quarter-finals, before exiting against Croatia on penalties. In front of the journalists’ insistence, Ancelotti, who will turn sixty-four on June 10, the day of the Champions League final, cut them off last spring. “Let things be clear: I will not talk about my professional future before the end of the season. I am calm and focused on our season. I want to reach the end of my contract,” Until 2024. And he concluded jokingly, similar to the end of his press conferences, “And if Real is happy with me, if he wants to keep me, I will stay until 2034.”
And he added in early April, “I do not know the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation. But if he wants to come to Madrid to negotiate with me, I would love to meet him and welcome him. I love staying at Real Madrid, I love this club.”
Ancelotti’s decision can be understood, especially before the 2024 season, which seems promising. And he will finally play in his renewed stadium, the Santiago Bernabeu. It is expected that the work that started at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic will be completed in December 2023, the expected launch date. The white team’s squad continues to develop: Ancelotti confirmed the recruitment of left-back Fran Garcia from Rayo Vallecano, and hopes that midfielder Ibrahim Dias, loaned to AC Milan, will return.
Real is working on the file of the brilliant young English midfielder Jude Bellingham this season with Borussia Dortmund. According to press reports, Dortmund gave its approval to the White Castle, but the agreement remains on the penalty clause, which may exceed one hundred million euros.
In light of such facts, Ancelotti, the only coach to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League in four decades (1990-2020), will be convinced to extend his stay in the capital. He will also be ready for a new adventure that will lead him to a fifth title as a coach in the Champions League and catch up with French Zinedine Zidane, the second most title-winning coach with Real Madrid (11) behind Miguel Muñoz (14).
