From “Bolito” to the king of European football Ancelotti and the province that won

By Matteo Massi “If Ancelotti took me, we’d win the Scudetto.” When Arrigo Sacchi told Adriano Galliani, then-CEO of Milan, in the summer of 1987, he questioned the rationality of the new coach. “Ancelotti is someone who, when he gets out of the car, has to put his hands under his thigh to get his knee out.” Galliani answered him, then Berlusconi wrote a check for 5 billion and the deal he thought Rome had made. He thought wrong. Maradona, after a few months, surprisingly asked Sacchi himself: “But does Ancelotti also run fast in your Milan?”. And Arrigo answered him thus: “No, think fast.” Ancelotti, who is almost 63 years old, is still thinking fast. On the eve of the final match of the Champions League for the fifth time, and then won it and entered the final in the Olympus of coaches, he said: “I notice what football looks like today, trying to understand what it will be like tomorrow.” Eight months ago he was called Mughal and Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid, who had called him up to coach the team, crazy. He did not take a turn. Hearing the word “boiled,” he must have thought of the hard-to-find chutney wagon in his homeland, Emilia, if they hadn’t (down) accepted culinary compromises and instead remained true to tradition. And he has never cut the umbilical cord in his land (Reggiolo, Reggio Emilia County), although he has lived all over the world for years and resides in Canada. When some of Juventus’s ultras launched a campaign of banners reading “a pig can’t train” against it, Carlo replied as follows: “It’s a serious disrespect for the pig, a noble animal.” Look (forward), pass by and don’t bother with them. He is used to falling and getting up. The …