Carlo Ancelotti: The Beautiful Game of an Ordinary Genius

by Aleesandro Alciato

  One day I was at home with a group of friends; we were talking about everything that was happening. I said I was amazed that the police hadn’t called me yet. They were questioning everyone they could think of. As if by stage direction, my cell phone rang at that very moment. It was from an unlisted number, caller unknown, which is like the signature of the classic prankster: “Hello, this is the carabinieri of Rome, I’m Warrant Officer Auricchio.”

  “Oh, come on. You trying to pull my leg? Who is this?”

  “Sir, believe me, I’m telling you the truth. I really am Warrant Officer Auricchio.”

  Sure, Auricchio, like the brand of provolone cheese. Mmmm-mmm … Auricchio—tastes good, and good for you!

  “Look, you can give me all the plausible details you want, my dear Auriemma.…”

  “Auricchio!”

  “Sure, right—Auricchio. But your surname is obviously a little too cute. I’m pretty sure this is a prank call.”

  My friends were all there; I wondered which one was trying to fool me by arranging for this anonymous prank call. “Listen, Ancelotti, this is serious business; we need to talk.”

  “Sure, but I don’t know who you are.”

  “My name is Auricchio.”

  “Again? I got that part. I just don’t know who you really are.”

  “This is the carabinieri of Rome.”

  “What is this, a broken record? If this really is the carabinieri of Rome, send me something official—a warrant, a radiogram.”

  “Ancelotti, the Italian police haven’t used radiograms since World War II.”

  “Listen, Auriemma …”

  “Auricchio!”

  “Right, okay, Auricchio, send me anything you want, but I want something from you to prove that you’re telling the truth. How about this: send a fax to the carabinieri in my hometown, and they can contact me.”

  I addressed him with the informal “tu,” while Auricchio continued to use the formal “Lei.” Something didn’t really make sense; as a prank, it was verging on the excessive.

  “Signor Ancelotti, you are a public figure. We’d really prefer to keep this private and confidential. It’s for your own good. Come to Rome in two days.”

  “Why would I want to come to Rome? Will you cut this out or not? What do you want from me? Who is this, anyway?”

  “This is Auricchio.”

  We sounded like Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio. Or maybe Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, because Pinocchio was already training over at Internazionale.

  “Listen, Ancelotti, let’s do this. I’ll call you back in two or three days.”

  “Do as you like.”

  “Buon giorno, Ancelotti.”

  “Buon giorno, Auriemma, or whatever the fuck your name is.”

  I had induced an identity crisis in the poor policeman. I was increasingly certain that it was all a joke, partly because the timing was just too perfect. Auricchio had called me at the exact moment in which I was talking about the investigation with my friends.

  Just out of curiosity, I started asking around. And it turns out there really was a Warrant Officer Auricchio. Even worse: he was a big wheel, a major figure in the ongoing investigation. I suddenly imagined myself in handcuffs, being indicted for insulting a public officer in the pursuit of his duties, moving steadily away from the coach’s bench of Milan, and closer toward a bench in the prison of San Vittore. A bench that maybe didn’t even wobble.

  In the end, I had to go to Rome to the carabinieri barracks. Once I got there, a young man with short dark hair was waiting for me. It was him, the original, the one, the only, the inimitable Warrant Officer Auricchio. And he was really a very nice guy.

  “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Ancelotti.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine, I’m Auriemma.”

  “Auriemma?”

  “No, what am I saying? Auricchio.”

  We enjoyed a jolly laugh, and it was the last. From then on, everything turned serious, damned serious.

  He accompanied me into a room. There sat the investigating magistrates, Narducci and Beatrice, on one side of the table with a third person. I was on the other side of the table: just like back in school at finals. They were the professors, and I was the student. Or perhaps I should say the person of interest, the subject of the interrogation. Because I was a person with knowledge of the events, I couldn’t just say whatever came into my mind, or I could have been charged with perjury. I had to tell the truth, and that is what I did. In particular, they asked me about the years I spent at Juventus, and whether I knew anything about Moggi’s relations with referees. I also listened to a wiretap of Leonardo Meani, the former chief of referees at Milan, who was talking with the chief of the assistant referees after a Siena–Milan match in which he had disallowed a regulation goal by Shevchenko. In that conversation, Meani complained about the treatment we were getting. At a certain point, he had said, “I have Ancelotti here in the car with me.” And that is why I was now sitting in a room with Auricchio. They let me go after about an hour.

  The second deposition was held in the investigations office of the Federation, again in Rome, and it was no fun at all. I left there with the distinct impression that they had it in for Milan. They took a tough attitude with me, their questions about Meani (who was and remains a close friend of mine) were pressing; they were doing their best to establish direct involvement on the club’s part. They almost seemed to take it for granted that we were guilty. I was very clear with the people who were questioning me: “Meani made those phone calls to protect A. C. Milan, to keep us from being continually penalized by specific calls by the referees.” In other words, no one had done anything illegal or scandalous. I knew we hadn’t done anything wrong, but we still had to suffer. I talked a lot with Galliani; he was very upset, the club’s public image was at stake. The situation just drove him into a fury. To reassure him, I said, “I’m staying, even if they bump us down into Serie B.” And the players with me.

  In the end, we started eight points down in Serie A and from the preliminaries in the Champions League. Even today, I still believe that A. C. Milan was the victim of a terrible injustice. If we go back and closely examine the championship games in question, we certainly had no advantage over Juventus. If anything, it was the opposite, especially in the direct confrontations; on one occasion in Turin, the referee, Bertini, refused to allow two blindingly obvious penalties. He also disallowed the advantage rule when Kaká was still on his feet after being fouled while running toward our opponents’ goal. We were three against one, and the referee stopped play. Three against two, if you include Bertini. That time, they really took it too far: the perfect crime.

  The summer of Calciopoli was a terrible time: we, as an Italian team, were world champions with a giant blot against our name. The Italian tricolor in the mud. For A. C. Milan, there was the preliminary round of the European Cup against Red Star Belgrade, and we needed to train and prepare. So I was forced to call all the players to Milanello early. Including the players who had just played the final against France in Berlin. I remember my conversation with Inzaghi: “Pippo, I’m sorry, but you have to come back. We need you.”

  “Okay, coach, just give me a second.”

  It really did just take a second; in fact, Pippo seemed to beam down to the training camp. He set a fine example for everyone—even for Pinocchio.

  CHAPTER 24

  There Is No Such Thing as the Malta Pact

  If the Great Communicator, He who Knows, the Lord of the Press Conference, the Immense Provocateur, the Special Coach who never has to ask (although he was asked repeatedly about the Champions League at Chelsea, and seemed to offer no reply) had already been among us common mortals at the time, at the end of that cursed summer of 2006, he would certainly have stuck his nose into our business. And he would have said just one thing, with a Portuguese accent: “Zeru tituli for A. C. Milan.” Zero titles, no championships, no trophies on the horizon.

  In reality, though, we were
getting ready to make our move. Granted, we had drafted Daniele Bonera for the preliminary rounds of the Champions League, only to discover that he had been disqualified and wouldn’t be able to play. But otherwise all was good. We were, as usual, a trifle old, but actually in pretty good shape—Cafu in particular. He had surprised me. He showed up at Milanello just three days before the away game against Red Star, and he was in extraordinary condition. Every time he came back from Brazil, he looked like a brand new defender, fully rejuvenated. I never understood exactly what he did during his holidays, and I’m not sure I want to know. We won at home, and we won again at the away game; we qualified, and the Champions League couldn’t go on without us. And we couldn’t go on without the Champions League.

  In that period, I was coaching two teams: officially, A. C. Milan, and in my heart, Liverpool. I was rooting for us and for them; I wanted to take both teams to the final match, which would be played in Greece. Over the previous year and a half, we had been knocked off track in Istanbul and by Calciopoli, and we had barely managed to qualify for the Champions rounds, but I was already thinking of Athens. I revealed my thoughts on the eve of the away game against AEK Athens, while I was being interviewed at the Olympic Stadium: “I’m here to get acquainted with the field.” I remember that one or two older journalists—the kind that always think they know everything but really know less than the others—looked at me as if I was the village idiot. In fact, we struggled for a few more months after that. We gave up on the Italian championship almost immediately: being penalized eight points was just too much. In the Champions League, we were clumsy and not entertaining to watch. In the first round, we went up against AEK Athens, Anderlecht, and Lille. We got to the next level, but without generating a lot of excitement. In November and December, they were already giving us up for dead. Zeru tituli. Zeru tituli. The truth is that the engine was flooding: that summer, we hadn’t had time to train properly, and that was beginning to weigh us down, to affect our play on the field. We couldn’t wait for it to be Christmas so we could stop and recharge our batteries. But there was one piece of good news: Liverpool wasn’t giving up. It was continuing its march; it was still in the running for the Cup, just like us. Everything was going according to plan—plans established by fate, not by me. Obviously, my bench was wobbling and swaying as if it were high on ecstasy, and Galliani had his monkey wrench out and was already loosening bolts: the vice president as a working man.

  And so on, until the mid-season break. At that point, the club decided to take all of us to train in Malta: “At least you can get into good physical and athletic shape.” There, we were reborn as a team; we started moving at a decent pace. We looked like a brand new squad, and, before long, people started talking about the notorious Malta Pact. So notorious, in fact, that it never existed. I don’t even know what it was supposed to be. The newspapers all wrote the same phrases: “The Pact, The Team’s Secret to Regaining Its Greatness.” Those articles aroused my curiosity. So I asked the players about them. I was worried that they might have cut me out of the loop: “You haven’t made some kind of pact without telling me, have you?” They didn’t get it; they figured I must have gone senile. The reality was much simpler: we were working well, better than we ever had in the previous months. The same thing was happening at Liverpool: another piece of good news. I was asking around, following the news, keeping up on how they were doing. Viva the Reds.

  In the meantime, Rino Gattuso was losing his mind, and it was all Kakha Kaladze’s fault. Rino’s birthday is January 9. A few days before his birthday, at the beginning of a training session, Kakha made us all stop what we were doing. He asked if he could speak. “Coach, sorry, I have something to say. It’s very important.”

  “Be my guest, Kakha …”

  “It’s three days to Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

  Maybe his gears were starting to slip, but we decided to act as if nothing had happened. That night, at dinner, the same thing: “Excuse me, boys, I have something to tell you all.”

  “Go ahead, Kakha …”

  “It’s two days and fourteen hours till Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

  Our doctors gave us worried looks; they wanted to intervene, they were standing by with a straitjacket, cleaned and pressed, but we told them to hold off. The following morning, the same thing again. He raised his hand, and I let him go ahead: “Go ahead, Kakha …”

  “It’s two days until Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

  Poor Kaladze, Alzheimer’s is a terrible thing. And in such a young man, too. The team members started laughing, and Rino started to lose his temper. He felt he was a target of ridicule. The countdown went on—and on, and on. Until the night of January 8: “Boys, it’s just three hours until Rino Gattuso’s birthday.” Rino was having a hard time controlling himself at this point. He would have gladly beaten him within an inch of his life. Finally, it was the ninth: nothing. Zero. No one said a thing. The silence of the darkest days. So I finally spoke up: “Kakha, you don’t by any chance have something to tell us?”

  “No, coach, what on earth would I have to tell you?”

  “You’re sure you’re not forgetting anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I looked at Rino out of the corner of my eye; he was ticking like a time bomb, ready to go off at any second. He kept control of himself and believed he had emerged the winner. On January 10, at lunch at training camp, Kaladze came over to me with a very sad expression on his face. It seemed like something terrible had happened, so I walked over to him with a show of concern, and asked him, “Is there something wrong?”

  “Yes, coach, it’s three hundred and sixty-four days till Rino Gattuso’s birthday.”

  Explosion in the cafeteria; we were clearly in the presence of a genius. He was immediately chased down by Rino and pummeled furiously. I think that this is when Kakha began to feel the first creakings in his knee. Maybe someone talked to the journalists about Kaladze, especially the older ones, who always claim to know everything but who had just got it wrong once again. It was Malta Cracked, not the Malta Pact.

  Which, let me say it again, never existed—even though, in that period, I was beginning to pick up positive signals from the team. Or rather, from the teams: A. C. Milan and Liverpool. In everything I said, I emphasized the concept of how we had been penalized, the injustices to which we had been subjected, and how much I would like to give the lie to the birds of ill omen that hovered around us. My mind was free, so ideas entered my head more easily: “Boys, don’t worry, I’m taking you to the final.”

  It was January, and I was still thinking about Athens. In the meantime, Massimo Ambrosini was thinking of quitting soccer entirely, because of his succession of injuries. His morale was so low that it had emerged on the far side of the globe. We were forced to undertake a major psychological project focusing on him—an attempt to change his mind-set, remind him of how much we needed him. It was important for us, for Liverpool—for everyone.

  I had a clear idea of the ideal formation for us to win the Champions League, and he was part of that formation. “With you, we can win,” I told him. The only reason he didn’t tell me to go fuck myself was that he was a polite young man, but he was certainly on the verge of summoning an exorcist. But I insisted: “Massimo, I’m not kidding. Certain games, I can’t send in Inzaghi and Gilardino together; we’d be too unbalanced. I want to dust off the good old Christmas Tree, and we need you there for it. End of story.”

  This was my idea: Gattuso, Pirlo, and Ambrosini in the middle; Kaká and Seedorf as a pair of attacking midfielders; and a single striker up front. Without Yoann Gourcuff, who was talented but also crazy. A strange, very strange young man, a little egocentric: he mostly thought about himself. He had incredible potential, but he kept it all to himself. Off the field, he was a troublemaker, but that never influenced my decisions. Very simply, he just didn’t know how to fit in as a team player. In contrast, Ambrosini, who was playing in the Italian Cup again af
ter a long period on the bench, felt a sharp pain in his thigh and slipped back into a kind of athletic depression: “That’s it, I want to quit, I really can’t take it anymore. I just don’t think I can go on like this.”

  The doctor was baffled. He took me aside and practically whispered to me: “Look, he’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with his leg that I can see.”

  So I had another conversation with Massimo: “On Sunday, we’re playing a championship match against Lazio. The doctors tell me that you’re a hypochondriac, but you claim you are in pain. So let’s do this. I’m going to field you, you keep playing as long as you can—a minute, two minutes, ten minutes, or even thirty. And if you break something, all the better; we’ll solve the problem, and we’ll understand that you were right the whole time.”

  So what happened? He took the field, had no problems, and started to feel okay again (or continued to feel okay?).

  All of the pieces were beginning to fit into place, and I was increasingly confident we were going to Athens this year. In other words: zeru tituli, my ass.

  CHAPTER 25

  The Perfect Match, Played the Night Before

  In the winter of 2007, Greece was already in our sights. The important thing was to know how to wait, and while we were biding our time, Milan bought Ronaldo from Real Madrid during the January transfer market. We were suspended midway between mythology and the history of art. The Phenomenon is a remarkable young man—an open, generous, sensitive, humble, shy person. He’s the opposite of what everyone thinks of him. The only thing is, there was nothing driving him to train and exercise to attain the maximum he could achieve. And that really pissed me off. I had never had a striker of his quality; Ronie was, and remains, unrivaled in his field—the invention of a superior mind.