Real Madrid and Carlo Ancelotti seem to have been born for each other, which confirms once again that in the white club only the so-called soft-handed coaches work, in the style of the Italian coach as Zinédine Zidane or Vicente del Forest, very far from the sullen, know-it-all and inflexible model that José Mourinho or Rafa Benítez represented a few years ago and with little success.
With the League won on Saturday, Real Madrid's 36th, Ancelotti now has 12 titles from the Whites' bench, surpassing by one the eleven won by Zidane and getting even closer to the fourteen of Miguel Muñoz, the most successful of all. And beyond that he is by far the second coach with the most victories, with 205, well above Zidane's 172, although below Muñoz's 357. But Ancelotti has achieved it in five seasons, while Muñoz was there from 1958 to 1974.
At 64 years old, and with a contract until June 2026, Carlo Ancelotti defined his job with a sentence very much in his style: “I have a very clear idea about our role. There are two types of trainers: those who do nothing and those who do a lot of damage. So, I try to be in the first group, that of those who do nothing,” he stated.
For Ancelotti, the key to his way of understanding football is to adapt to the characteristics of his players and not put them in a rigid tactical system. When the lack of style of his Madrid is ugly (or he is insisted that his team only seeks victory at any price) the Italian considers that the greatest merit of this Madrid is having different systems and knowing how to adapt to the circumstances of the moment .
A data. This is the first Madrid in history to win a League without having a number nine. Their center forward, Joselu, is an almost residual player.
And this season's Madrid is a team that has been evolving. The preseason began with a new system around a diamond in the center of the field, with Bellingham at the top and Vinícius and Rodrygo up front. The team did not fall with the three cruciate breaks (Courtois, Militão and Alaba), nor with Vinícius' muscle injuries, which left him out of eleven games. In those months without the Brazilian, Bellingham supported Madrid with 17 goals in all competitions. Two of them served to knock down Barcelona and deal an emotional blow to the League.
In a locker room with fewer egos than in other times, the squad believes in Ancelotti because they see him as fair. And he has proof. He did not hesitate in the past to seat Hazard and Bale, the two players who earned the most, or this year to give Lunin the starting job over the newly signed, Kepa. Among Ancelotti's tasks there is another that is highly valued in the offices. Redirecting Vinícius, something that was considered, if not impossible, then very difficult. And the Brazilian has been dedicated only to playing football for two months.
