July on Warpcast

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I want to talk about Carlo Ancelotti I was recalling a conversation I had about Milan with @gilles talking about the Golden Age of Milan, that Ancelotti coached: Kaka, Rui Costa, Maldini, Nesta, Seedorf, Gattuso, Pirlo, Cafu. That Milan. That was truly a wonderful Milan. Seedorf is a 10, Pirlo is a weird 10, and Rui Costa and Kaka are of course 10s, but of a different style. And Ancelotti somehow figures out a way to combine all of them together on a pitch and succeed. Some accuse him as being tactic-less. In this modern age of Football, the extrapolation of The Cruijffian Totaalvoetbal taken to its natural extreme -- through the Tiki Taka of Barça Guardiola, Gegenpressing of Jürgen Klopp, the new Brighton De Zerbi, Arteta's Arsenal, the Guardiola disciple. Even Unai Emery's new Aston Villa does a lot of positional play, and the new Bayern Guardiola / Man City Guardiola -- it feels like positional play is that's all there is these days. And then you realize, Ancelotti won the UCL, again??

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I think similar to this was Sir Alex Ferguson. Many forget the different incarnations of Man Utd. What most people don't know is before Sir Alex Ferguson was at Aberdeen, beat the Rangers / Celtics deadlock and Aberdeen won the league (for the first time in forever at the time) and somehow went on to Europe and found success. One of the things Sir Alex was known for was his man management. There are a only a few coaches left, I'd say that rely purely on getting the best out of their players. Folks like Guardiola, Arteta, and De Zerbi, (and now it seems Arne Slot of Liverpool as well) are all bought into this general thesis of using your players like pawns -- its all half spaces, and everyone has roles to play. One of the things, in a weird way that I see with Sir Alex, and also to a larger extent with Ancelotti, is in a way more freedom for the players to express themselves.

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Ancelotti has an amazing ability to still command a certain level of authority, but also understand that he needs to deal with players individually and motivate them, take care of them as a human, not just as football player that fits into a machine (*cough* looking at you José *cough*) so many players report that when Ancelotti leaves they are sad. Kaka even said that his best playing days were with Ancelotti because he let him free to play his own football. It's so interesting and so contrasting and philosophically and ideologically diametrically opposed to this philosophy of strict positional play / cat and mouse game that is going on with how to press, how to break the low block against opposing teams that like to sit back, how to play De Zerbi style Brighton Counter-attacks, its an arms race constantly of trying to outwit your opponent And then hilariously, here is Ancelotti going out there pretty much telling Jude Bellingham to play his best. And they win the UCL. What?

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