Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches

by Carlo Ancelotti

  We lost, 1–0 away at Everton, on the last day of the season. I’m told that the CEO was driving away from the stadium when he got the call to say, ‘Turn around and tell Carlo he is fired.’ I think the logic was that there was no point in waiting and telling me later. At least this way I could say goodbye to the players and staff before the off-season. That night, when the team arrived back in London, the senior players – Didier Drogba, John Terry, Frank Lampard and the others – took me out for dinner and a few drinks. I had never known that before in my career. I think I was liked.

  My time at Chelsea followed a familiar arc. We delivered an amazing League and Cup double in the first season, playing in the style the owner wanted, followed by an inevitable hiatus, a cooling of the relationship with the owner and my possibly harsh dismissal. The time frame of the arc, after my long period at Milan, was new to me, however.

  In the first season the results and the style seemed to please the owner, although, as I look back now, there were those red flags I mentioned that I had missed. In the second season I saw the end coming months before it did, just as I would later at Madrid. Rumours had begun to circulate that I gave more advantages to the English players than the others – that the English players were my favourites. This was not true. I had a fantastic relationship with the English players because they were very professional and ‘energizers’ in the squad. I didn’t care what happened outside of that because in the period when things were getting serious, they were really good on the pitch.

  The relationship with the owner, however, was not so good. To break a relationship there are little details that all add up. There was the sacking and replacing of Ray Wilkins, and Abramovich also started to say that I had a preference for certain players; perhaps he was buying into the rumours about my favouritism. I told him that it wasn’t true – I made it very clear. It is important that presidents and coaches can be open with each other.

  Maybe the favouritism thing was an excuse for Abramovich. I believe his main reason for letting me go was that he thought the management of the squad was not right. He thought that I was too kind in front of the players and he grew sure that it was causing something to go wrong within the group. He would try to convince me, with all my experience to the contrary, to be stronger, tougher and more rigorous with the players.

  I’d heard it before and I’ve heard it since, but he was wrong – they are all wrong. I don’t change my character.

  What they hire me for is my ability to calm the situation at a club by building relationships with the players, which is one of my biggest strengths. At some later stage that is not the approach they want any more and the relationship with the owners – not the players, but the owners – begins to worsen. They hire me to be kind and calm with the players and then at the first sign of trouble along the way that’s the very characteristic they point to as the problem. I know that if I am winning then it is because I am calm; equally, if I am losing it is because I am calm. How can it be both? It’s a paradox, but I was trapped by it at Chelsea. Maybe this is the natural cycle of managers in general, that the very reason they are hired in the first place eventually becomes the reason they are fired. Or maybe this is only the reason for the Ancelotti arc. I know that I cannot change my character, so maybe I cannot change my arc. All I can say for certain is that I was very disappointed to leave Stamford Bridge.

  The Parisian Project

  Paris Saint-Germain had been acquired by Qatar Sports Investments under the chairmanship of Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and they were looking for a big-name coach to lead the team to new heights, especially in the Champions League. As a Champions League winner, my name will always be on the list in such a situation, but to offer me the position was widely considered strange in France as Paris Saint-Germain were sitting at the top of Ligue 1 at the time.

  Paris Saint-Germain didn’t question me, as Mike Forde had done at Chelsea, about my style of coaching, philosophies or staffing needs. Perhaps this was because the general director there was my friend from Milan, Leonardo. Paris Saint-Germain was to be a new challenge for me. Their vision was to become one of the best sides in Europe in two or three years and it was my job to manage the project and deliver that goal.

  I joined the club in December 2011, midway through the season. When you become manager during the season it’s difficult to bond with the existing staff, because there hasn’t been time before the competitions start to develop a way of working together. To have a full preseason with the staff and players is so important for building relationships. Timing is crucial. What is the situation? What are the constraints? Is it best to avoid joining a business mid-season, in a mid-budget cycle? Was I asking for trouble?

  I realized very quickly that PSG didn’t have good organization, so I had to bring in staff. It was back to my previous working pattern. I brought in Paul Clement as my assistant along with a new physical trainer, analysts and scientists. At Chelsea I already had capable experts to cover the most important areas, but for me PSG was a new challenge where I had to build my own support team.

  It wasn’t just the staff that needed organizing. The club was so different from Milan or Chelsea, where everything is in place and they know how to manage things. PSG was more like the clubs I’d managed early in my career, rather than one with ambitions to be a global superclub. We travelled to an away fixture and, on the Thursday, the team administrator asked us what we wanted to eat on Saturday night: ‘Do you want salmon or chicken?’ What? You are asking me this on a Thursday – why isn’t it already established? The club didn’t even have a restaurant. The players would arrive at the ground thirty minutes before training and leave immediately afterwards.

  I needed to introduce the conditions and organization that would help build the kind of winning mentality that the big clubs all possess. The players needed to understand, as those at Milan had done, that they were part of a great club – but I had to begin this process slowly, slowly, softly, softly. I spoke with the players about what we would do and, day by day, we began to improve the culture of the club. We organized a small restaurant in the training ground for the players to have breakfast when they arrived and lunch after training, so that they could be together and develop some team spirit. We didn’t impose any of this. We just organized things for the players and made it welcoming for them to stay, so that they would want to stay.

  Despite having been top of the league when I was approached, we finished second, a situation in which the coach would usually be sacked. I wasn’t, and I felt very encouraged by this. The club’s board were focused on the project and they seemed to understand that it would take time. You have to buy players in the summer, build a squad and then win the league next year, reach maybe the quarter-final of the Champions League. It was essential for me both to improve the team the year after and to improve it year on year, and it was a positive sign that I was being given the time to do this.

  We began to bring in players with the right mentality. In the summer we signed Zlatan Ibrahimović and Thiago Silva, both top players and highly professional. They were examples for the others. Sometimes it’s the players who have to be the leaders, not the manager, and Silva and Ibrahimović immediately became the leaders in the dressing room. It was why I wanted them.

  I spoke with Ibrahimović separately and explained the situation at the club and how important he could be in the dressing room. ‘You can be a good example for all the others,’ I said. ‘You have experience, talent, personality; you have character and in this sense you can be fantastic.’

  Maybe he’s not so diplomatic, but he’s a winner. The biggest problem I had with him was on the training ground. Even at the training sessions he didn’t want to lose anything – ever. He’s always fighting, always 100 per cent. He can only be one way – direct. If he doesn’t like something, he’s going to tell you. With the young players he could be too strong, so I told him that he had to take care of them because he was an example for them. I explained that a bit of subtlety w
as required, as it is not always effective to speak so strongly with the young. Subtlety is not Ibra’s strongest suit.

  One day on the training ground, Ibra thought that one of the young players had not given his best effort to the session. At the end of training Ibra called this guy over and said, ‘Now, you have to go home and write in your diary that you trained with Zlatan today, because I think it could be the last time that you do.’

  He was never afraid to speak the truth to anyone, even me. On one occasion we were speaking about Hernán Crespo, who was, in my opinion, an outstanding striker. When I asked Ibra what he thought, he said, ‘Yes, he’s a striker, but he cannot make the difference. There are only three players who make the difference: Ibrahimović, Messi and Ronaldo.’ Such is his confidence and he is correct to think it. Ibra is one of the few strikers, maybe the only one, who is just as happy when he makes an assist as he is when he scores. He is one of the most unselfish players I have ever met, which is of massive value to the team.

  With all of the new arrivals over the summer, it took time for them to settle in and become embedded in their role, so even by the December of my first full season, the team was still not in the right shape. Despite this, we were well placed in second position in the league and we had qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League with a game to spare. Then we lost a game against Nice. We were due to play the last group game in the Champions League three days later when the president and Leonardo came to tell me, ‘If you don’t win this game you will be sacked.’ We had already qualified from the group, so why would he say this then, even if it was true?

  They came again, the day before the match, and both told me, ‘Win tomorrow or the sack.’ When I asked why, they said, ‘Because we are not happy. We are following the project, not only the result, and we’re not happy. We’ve decided that if we don’t win this game you will be sacked.’

  I told them that even if they thought that, why tell a manager he will be sacked? If I win the game what happens then? I stay, sure, but I won’t be comfortable. I will know that I’ve lost the confidence of the president and the general director.

  We won the game. We played well, beating Porto 2–1, so I wasn’t sacked. But everything had changed for me. I no longer had the trust of the club, which made my position untenable, especially in a long-term project like this one, and I told Leonardo that, at the end of the season, I would go. Leonardo was my friend, or so I had thought, and he gave no real explanation for treating me like that. I was surprised, because it should never happen like this in football, or in any business. If you have to sack people then sack them – don’t tell them that if they lose or do a bad job you’re going to sack them. If I don’t do a good job then just fire me, but don’t give me stupid ultimatums. You are the boss, so of course you have the right to sack whoever you want – just be a man about it.

  It was the opposite at Juventus, where I signed a new contract but when we finished the season in second place, the club was not happy. They called me and said, ‘We have to change the manager.’ Up until the last day I was thought to be the best manager in the world for them, and the next day they let me go. OK, no problem – but don’t tell me this during the season.

  I’m not sure that the prevailing orthodoxy in HR would agree with me, but I want to be honest. I’d always prefer losing my job not to be dragged out. I’ve learned that getting sacked – and getting recruited, for that matter – is rarely just about you. It is always about the person hiring or firing you. Do your job to the best of your ability and let others judge you because they will anyway.

  I was sad to leave PSG because of the relationship I had established with the players, but it had become impossible for me to stay. Another arc had drawn to a close, which was disappointing and surprising, because I had expected to be involved in a long-term project. However, an exciting new challenge was awaiting me in Madrid.

  Great Expectations: Real Madrid

  It was an acceptable start. In my first season at Real Madrid I delivered the holy grail of ‘La Décima’ – a record tenth European Cup/UEFA Champions League title – for the club’s president, Florentino Pérez. I managed to integrate record-signing Gareth Bale into a role that added value to the team and complemented Cristiano Ronaldo; I oversaw Ángel Di María’s rediscovery of his form and I resurrected Luka Modrić, who had become possibly the most important player after Ronaldo.

  As the second season began, things just seemed to get better. We went on an unprecedented twenty-two-match winning run, only to succumb to injuries and politics and eventually win nothing. So, just twelve months after delivering the Champions League at the first attempt, I paid the price – with my job.

  As Vito Corleone would have said in one of my favourite movies, The Godfather: ‘It’s not personal, it’s just business.’

  Two years before, I was sad to be leaving Paris Saint-Germain after winning Ligue 1 in France. But I knew that I was on my way to one of the most coveted and precarious leadership challenges in world football at Madrid. Florentino Pérez had never hidden his admiration for me, having made an approach twice before to make me Real manager, and when I finally joined at the third time of asking, he welcomed me and what he called the calming presence of the ‘peacemaker’.

  He said many kind words, but I also knew that the same Pérez had presided over the hirings and firings of nine managers in his twelve years over two terms as president. My eyes were wide open from the start – it’s the nature of the job – and, as was clear from Pérez’s statements immediately after sacking me, Madrid is not a club where you should be putting down roots. Even by football’s crazy standards, Madrid are in a class of their own. The time to adjust, the honeymoon and the time to sustain success is even more compressed than in the rest of football. When he sacked me Pérez said, ‘Carlo is part of our history because he won “La Décima” for us. But here the demands are very high and we need to give Real Madrid a new push that allows us to reach the level that we want to be. It was a very difficult decision to make. The demands at this club are the utmost because Madrid always wants to win silverware.’

  His words were kind at the end too, when he added that the ‘affection that the players and the fans have for Carlo is the same as the affection I myself have for him’. Only two days before Pérez’s announcement Cristiano Ronaldo had tweeted, ‘Great coach and amazing close relationships that Ancelotti has built with the players. I hope we work together next season.’ Other players had followed suit, so I could be pleased that I had made positive relationships, which is always an important goal for me. Relationships with my staff, my players, the general manager and, of course, the president – they’re vital.

  The most important thing when I started the job in Madrid was to calm the dressing room following Mourinho’s departure. Many of the players were unsettled and I needed to build relationships with the senior players quickly. It is important for me to identify the leaders in the team, and the different types of leader, so I can work well with them. Players like Sergio Ramos, Ronaldo, Pepe – they were already the leaders.

  Ronaldo is what I call a ‘technical leader’, who leads by example; he doesn’t speak a lot but is serious, very professional and takes care of himself. He is a good guy. Ramos is what I call a ‘personality leader’, a leader with strong character, who is never scared, never worried – always positive. Pepe is a fantastic and serious player. His energy and drive are infectious. Iker Casillas was also important as he was always, man and boy, a Madridista. He and the fans he represented believed that he had been badly treated, so it was important to have him onside. These were the people I wanted the other players to look to, to reference. For example, I remember a small incident with Fábio Coentrão, when he complained that another player was not working hard enough. I asked him, ‘Who do you compare yourself to? Is it to the player who is not working or the sixteen who are?’ Straight away, he knew. Reference the leaders because they are the ones who will help your career.
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  Madrid is an amazing organization with great history and tradition. At Paris Saint-Germain I was maybe the most important part of the project because I had the experience that nobody else had, but at Real Madrid you are only ever a piece of the project, because everyone in the organization knows what they are there to do. Everyone from the kit man to the president is able to work at the top level. Real Madrid is like AC Milan, the club I’ve called home before, apart from with the manager, which Madrid change a lot. All the other people – the kit man, the physio – they are more or less the same over a long period of time, like a family, working together. So, the support staff are permanent, which was good for me. I didn’t have to concern myself with that, it was already in place, so I was able to say to the players, ‘Let’s just concentrate on getting better.’

  At Real Madrid it is not possible to complete a season without winning the one trophy or even the many trophies that the president has promised the fans and the media. In my first season he had promised ‘La Décima’, which we delivered and also we won the Copa del Rey, but I knew that the president only really cared about the Champions League. It had become an obsession with everybody around the club. They had hired the ‘special one’ to secure ‘La Décima’, yet even someone so special had failed to deliver it.

  They had been playing a more defensive style than the president liked before I arrived, so, while I was given the freedom to change the style of play, it was insisted of me, whether I wanted to or not, that we should be more offensive. Thankfully, I was experienced in working with a president’s wishes and any leader needs to become comfortable with the particular demands of their position. It worked well for me. The team was more motivated because when you change the style of play the players listen and concentrate more and work harder in training. For the same reason I changed a lot of the training sessions and kept switching them regularly. I didn’t want to do the same exercises all the time because it becomes monotonous quickly. It all went well initially, but gradually we had to start to make decisions about where to put our efforts. Should we rest players? Should we concentrate on the Champions League or La Liga? We managed it effectively, winning the Champions League and making the obsession of the club a reality. But already, the pressure for the next season begins. A club like Madrid never stands still.