RICHARD WILLIAMStalks to Carlo Ancelotti ahead of tomorrow's vintage encounter with fellow wine buff Alex Ferguson
CARLO ANCELOTTI is not exactly sure, but he thinks it was a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, a fine red wine from the hills to the south-west of Florence, he produced when Alex Ferguson joined him for a drink in the aftermath of a thunderous European Cup semi-final at the Stadio delle Alpi in April 1999.
Two weeks earlier, after Ancelotti’s Juventus held Manchester United to a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford, Ferguson had offered his rival the customary drink to celebrate what he called “a fantastic game”, in which the Italian club’s hopes of victory had been ended by a last-minute equaliser from Ryan Giggs. “I was a bit angry and upset,” Ancelotti said yesterday. “But after the red wine it was better.”
In Turin a fortnight later the Zidane-inspired Juventus went two goals up in the first 10 minutes of the return leg, only to be pegged back by half-time and ultimately deflated as United fought their way to the final. Afterwards Ancelotti produced his bottle of mellow rosso.
It will be the same again tomorrow evening, after Chelsea and United have concluded a top-of-the-table encounter at Stamford Bridge which begins with the London side two points ahead of their rivals.
During his eight seasons in charge at AC Milan, Ancelotti re-established a mood of stability at the club, winning the league title in 2004 and the European Cup in 2003 and 2007. At San Siro he supervised a total of 413 games, leaving before he could achieve a stated ambition of overtaking Nereo Rocco’s record of 450.
The situation he found on his arrival at Chelsea this summer was not dissimilar. Building on foundations laid by Claudio Ranieri, Jose Mourinho had given the club three exhilarating years of success, but then came the dressingroom unrest under Avram Grant and then Luiz Felipe Scolari. The short-term revival engineered by Guus Hiddink seemed likely to cast any permanent successor into the shrewd Dutchman’s shadow.
But once again, if the results of his first three months are any guide, Ancelotti has proved himself adept at picking up the pieces and gluing them into a nice new shape. Only a few months after claiming this Chelsea team was past its peak, yesterday Ferguson was practically cooing his praise.
“I thought Ancelotti would do well,” the United manager said. “He was a great coach at AC Milan. He was also a great player, so he has a lot of knowledge. He brought a different system to the ones Chelsea have used in the past. It has maybe been easier to adapt their tactics because they have very experienced players, who have more tactical knowledge than the younger ones. It has probably been a bonus for them in that respect and it seems to have worked well.”
The different system involves playing two strikers, something he was reluctant to do at Milan, despite the entreaties of the owner, Silvio Berlusconi. Behind a revitalised Didier Drogba and an uncharacteristically cheerful Nicolas Anelka can be found a narrow midfield diamond, in which Deco is currently favoured as the advanced playmaker.
Like Hiddink, Ancelotti seems to command the liking of his players as well as their respect, and Drogba, Michael Ballack and Florent Malouda are among those whose performances have perked up, while Joe Cole, after missing most of the year recovering from a serious injury, has been successfully restored to action.
Ancelotti has not followed the example set by Mourinho and Scolari of filling the dressingroom and the bench with compatriots. The only Italians are Bruno Demichelis, the former European karate champion and sports psychologist brought from Milan to monitor the players’ conditioning, and Fabio Borini, an 18-year-old forward acquired from Bologna two years before the head coach’s arrival and recently promoted to the first-team squad.
Alongside Demichelis in the hierarchy, however, is Ray Wilkins, twice the club’s player of the year in the mid-70s, and known to Ancelotti from his subsequent seasons with Milan, where the two became friends.
It is a comfortable set-up, with Wilkins and Demichelis – who studied at an American university - able to help the head coach improve his grasp of English football vernacular. In every other sense, as his record and Chelsea’s recent performances suggest, Ancelotti has little to learn.
This season’s two defeats, at Wigan Athletic and Aston Villa, were quickly absorbed and expunged – the latter, in mid-October, by a run of five matches in which Chelsea have scored 19 goals and conceded two.
They go into tomorrow’s match having not conceded at Stamford Bridge for 13 hours and two minutes, since Stephen Hunt scored against them for Hull City on the opening day of the season.
Ancelotti will not be scared by the prospect of facing Ferguson in such a key match. Eight years after that disappointment in Turin he took his revenge by leading Milan to victory over United in another Champions League semi-final, this time following a 3-2 defeat in Manchester – earned by a Wayne Rooney goal in stoppage time – with a 3-0 victory at San Siro.
Nor is he daunted by a five-year plan in which Chelsea’s new chief executive Ron Gourlay is budgeting for two European Cup wins. “This is a very good motivation for us,” Ancelotti responded yesterday, with a smile. “I had the luck to win two Champions Leagues in four years. So I have one extra year here.”
