Amid Champions League chaos, the calm of Carlo Ancelotti may prove Real Madrid’s saviour

A manager embarked on a particularly animated display of pointing. Then he crouched down, seemingly to get the view from three feet. He strayed out of his technical area, at one stage entering the other. He thrust his left arm out, like a man desperate to hail a taxi. He had his head in his hands time and again. He collected a caution for running at the fourth official in semi-comical fashion.

It wasn’t Carlo Ancelotti. How could it be? The Real Madrid manager has survived for 40 years at the summit of the game, often without resorting to anything more demonstrative than an arched eyebrow.

His team were the side trailing, often by one goal, three times by two, but panicking is scarcely part of the Ancelotti brand. Even when instructions were conveyed, it was in a languid manner. As Manchester City launched into attack after attack, his hands spent much of their time in his pockets. Pep Guardiola’s seemed to have a life of their own. One looked a nervous wreck during a frenetic classic of a semi-final, the other a retiree passing time by observing a mildly diverting paddling of ducks at his local pond.

Part of the criticism of Ancelotti is that he seems passive. The sense sometimes is that things happen to him, rather than him shaping events, but he is the most decorated passive manager in the business. More good things have happened to Ancelotti than to virtually anyone else. He won the European Cup in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, probably all without his heart rate rising above resting.

He yet might win it in the 2020s, too, which looked improbable when City threatened to overrun and overwhelm Real.

Instead, they illustrated their status as the Champions League’s zombie team. The shots rained in on their goal, their defence creaked and they were behind for 88 minutes, plus injury time, but it is impossible to fully kill off Real. There were moments when they looked old and past their best, which are accusations that are levelled at Ancelotti, others when the institutional memory of players and manager alike seemed to kick in.

Perhaps Real Madrid will win the Champions League because they are Real Madrid.

They went 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2 down and responded every time. Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea can testify to that capacity for comebacks. An Ancelotti-esque refusal to panic stood Real in good stead. His laidback nature was reflected when Karim Benzema had the coolness to chip in a penalty, Panenka style. He channelled his manager’s insouciance and scored.

The greater surprise was that even Ancelotti celebrated Vinicius Junior’s goal, a couple of minutes after Phil Foden had scored City’s third. He is the man who marked Everton’s fifth goal against Tottenham last year by simply blowing on his hot coffee. It was an exercise in nonchalance.

And Everton had another pertinence. The previous meeting of Guardiola and Ancelotti was a mismatch. The Italian has now seen his sides concede nine goals on his last two trips to the Etihad Stadium. One difference – and there are many others – is that this time they scored three. Ancelotti’s time with the Toffees ended at the Etihad Stadium, even if he didn’t know it at the time.

open image in gallery

A 5-0 defeat was the heaviest of his career. It left Everton in 10th, a position that they would love now but which underlined the theory that, in league seasons, Ancelotti does roughly as well as he should. Give him a mid-table squad and he finished in the middle of the table. Send him back to Real and he will clinch the title in La Liga soon. He might even win a fourth Champions League as a manager, a sixth overall.

He already leads Guardiola as both player and coach. They may be the definitive Barcelona and Real Madrid managers, the great ideologue and the star whisperer.

Guardiola has a philosophy but Ancelotti can massage the egos of Galacticos. The star whisperer has conjured a career-best season from Benzema, capped by his 40th and 41st goals.

His amiable pragmatism may make him ideally suited to Real. Guardiola’s hyperactive style of purism makes him the opposite. It was melodrama versus no drama and there will be another clash of styles in the technical areas in the Bernabeu next week.