Carlo Ancelotti has never been the type to settle his accounts publicly. Known for his diplomacy and his elegance, the current Brazil coach had so far abstained from any attack on his former leaders. But fourteen years after his departure from Chelsea, he chose to open a very personal parenthesis in his new book,
The Dream – Winning the Champions Leaguewhere he immediately evokes the collaboration he has appreciated the least during his career.
According to extracts relayed by the British press, the Italian coach says that his passage to the Blues was marked by a constant, almost suffocating presence of Roman Abramovitch. “He was my shadow”he wrote, before revealing that the Russian oligarch sometimes presented himself at the training center the day after a defeat to demand explanations. After a setback against Wigan, only a few weeks after his arrival, the former owner had landed to ask: “What didn't work?” ».
The most difficult collaboration of Ancelotti's career
This permanent proximity, which Encelotti had never known before, contrasts with her experiences elsewhere. He notably quotes Silvio Berlusconi, president of Milan AC, “Demanding but often absorbed by his functions as Prime Minister”which did not practice this daily micro -function. Abramovitch wanted to know everything, all the time. “If something was wrong, he was waiting for me to provide him with the answers”recalls the technician, an attitude he describes as unprecedented in his long career.
Ancelotti, dismissed in 2011, a year before Chelsea finally won the Champions League under Roberto Di Matteo, even admits that his former boss “May have been right” to send it back. He does not keep
“What good memories” From his visit to London, but the message is clear: this chapter remains the one where he felt the strongest pressure in his life as a coach.
A spike that will not go unnoticed
This unexpected outing may not please Abramovitch, which has disappeared from traffic since the sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. But she also recalls that, even for a coach as experienced as Ancelotti, certain collaborations mark permanently. And that behind the trophies and official smiles, there are sometimes tense relationships that only ask to resurface … even fourteen years later.
