The last Champions League tie in which Carlo Ancelotti stepped foot in the Allianz Arena, to which he returns this Tuesday, was a quarterfinal in which Real Madrid eliminated Bayern. It was April 2017, the Italian sat on the Bavarian bench and was eliminated (1-2 in Germany, 4-2 in the second leg). The Bernabéu defeat bothered him in a special way: “The card for Vidal (the second, in 84, with 1-2, heading to extra time) was not, two goals by Cristiano are offside,” he complained. In Germany, two milestones are set as determinants of Ancelotti’s fall at Bayern: the elimination against Madrid and the defeat against PSG five months later (3-0) in Mbappé’s dazzling European debut at the Parc des Princes , the Italian’s last match on the German bench.
The Bernabéu’s frustration was accentuated by the ammunition it provided to the veteran clan that, perhaps in the only locker room it has lost, ended up causing its dismissal in September. One of the missions that Bayern entrusted to the Italian when they agreed to have him join in the summer of 2016 was a generational transition similar to that of his second stage at Madrid. When he took over, Xabi Alonso and Lahm, who retired at the end of the course, were 34 and 32 years old. Robben had turned 32 and Ribéry, 33.
The plan had been prepared with margin. Already in December 2015, the club announced that Pep Guardiola would leave at the end of the season and that Ancelotti would replace him. The Italian had decided to extend his period of rest after Florentino Pérez fired him in June 2015. He resisted the seduction maneuvers to bring him back to Galliani’s Milan, who settled in the Wellington hotel, 500 meters from the club’s home. technician at the door of Alcalá. Ancelotti had decided to live in Vancouver with his wife, Mariann, a Canadian.
There he underwent surgery for a cervical hernia that caused some numbness in his hands. There he also received offers from Liverpool and Bayern, where his greatest supporter was his old friend, the former footballer Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, then president of the club’s board of directors. With so much foresight, Ancelotti had time to start learning some rudiments of German in Canada. Although he directed his dressing room above all with the English that he learned in 2009 in a Dutch convent to meet Abramovich’s demands before joining Chelsea.
In Munich, the city with the most Italians in Germany, Ancelotti found a comfortable life after the disappointment of Madrid. In Bavaria he replaced walks through Retiro Park with tours through the English Garden, near his Munich house. Furthermore, the city is not very far from Italy (a five-hour drive from Milan, for example), so, in addition to going there from time to time, he received frequent visits from friends who kept him supplied with Italian tomatoes for his recipes.
The management of the veterans was less placid. In particular that of Ribéry, who had already suffered under Guardiola. So much so that he celebrated Ancelotti’s arrival: “It is a gift for the club. Since he arrived I feel more confident.” The tensions were visible three days before Madrid’s visit to Munich for the first leg of the 2017 quarterfinals: the coach took him off the field in the 74th minute, the Frenchman asked him for explanations and Ancelotti calmed him down with a kiss. In the return match at the Bernabéu, he became upset with the coach’s corrections and made it seem like he was asking for a change.
Bayern closed the season with another Bundesliga, the club’s fifth in a row. It was not enough to move the old guard, who found the support of the Bayern leadership, despite the fact that Ancelotti had been tasked with a transition. “I had five players against me, it was unsustainable,” said the then president, Uli Hoeness. “As a coach, you can’t have star players against you. That’s why we had to take action.”
The dismissal was carried out by Rummenigge after the team lost 3-0 against PSG in a match that Ribéry watched from the bench. “He understood, he got up from his chair, hugged me and told me: ‘Okay, you’re no longer my boss, but you will continue to be my friend,’ said the former player, who cried that day. “We should have waited a little longer before saying goodbye.”
The night of the last classic, Ancelotti stayed for a while chatting with Lewandowski, one of his footballers from those rough days in Munich. Shortly after, the Pole showed in an interview in Bild a disenchantment similar to that of Rummenigge: “If Carlo had stayed a little longer, and we had overcome the difficult phase with him, an era would have been possible.” The Italian returns to play this Tuesday at the Allianz with Madrid, where in 2014, on the way to the Décima, also in the semifinals, he won 0-4. To Guardiola’s Bayern.
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