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One of the most successful club managers of all-time going to coach the most successful national side of all-time should make perfect sense. But Carlo Ancelotti taking charge of Brazil in 2024 is a seismic announcement and feels wrong on so many levels.
Ancelotti, the only coach to have won four Champions League titles and to have led title-winning sides in each of Europe's top-five leagues, has been frequently linked with the Brazil post ever since Tite left the role following the team's chastening quarter-final exit to Croatia in the 2022 World Cup.
Ednaldo Rodrigues, the president of the Brazilian football confederation, had spoken openly about his hope that Ancelotti would become the country's next coach. And the Italian did not exactly hide his enthusiasm for the job either, admitting in April that he was "excited" about the prospect of managing Brazil.
But the timing feels very strange, with Rodrigues having confirmed on Tuesday the appointment of Fluminense coach Fernando Diniz on an interim basis before Ancelotti takes charge right before the Copa America in June 2024. For Brazil, the objective is clearly the 2026 World Cup, and they believe that Ancelotti is the only man who can help them end their run of dismal results against European sides in the knockout stages. The last time the Selecao beat a European team in a World Cup knockout game was the 2002 final win over Germany.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, will be left in limbo, knowing that their coach is leaving at the end of the upcoming season, and football's history is littered with examples of players losing motivation when they know their manager is heading elsewhere. GOAL explains why the announcement comes as such a shock and why it is unlikely to turn out well for anyone in the short term...
Real Madrid consider themselves as the biggest club side in the world, and their 14 European Cups and 35 La Liga titles certainly back that claim up. So their coach agreeing a move elsewhere, even if it is to become manager of Brazil, feels like a slight on the reputation of Los Blancos.
Madrid are famously trigger-happy when it comes to firing managers, dispensing with Jupp Heynckes after winning the Champions League in 1998 and sacking Vicente del Bosque despite lifting Europe's biggest prize twice and landing two La Liga titles. Throughout history, it has been the Madrid hierarchy that has called the shots, not the managers. But now it looks like Ancelotti has the upper hand on them. He has effectively told the aristocrats of European football that they are his second-best option, his past rather than his future.
The fact that everyone knows Ancelotti has just one year left at Madrid could also be detrimental to the team's chances of having a good season. While there are some examples of managers enjoying glorious swansongs, such as Heynckes winning the treble with Bayern Munich in 2013, the knowledge that a coach is not staying in the long term often leads to a drop in motivation and worse results.
Sir Alex Ferguson announced he was retiring as Manchester United manager at the start of the 2001-02 season, a decision he would later reverse, and later described it as "the biggest mistake". His side ended that campaign without a trophy, surrendering the Premier League title to Arsenal at Old Trafford. I think a lot of them had put their tools away, Ferguson recalled. They thought, ‘Oh, the manager’s leaving’, but when I changed my mind in the January, I started thinking about United again and how we could get back on top. Ferguson learned from that mistake, and when he decided to retire once and for all in 2013, he kept it a secret, only announcing it with two games left of the season after the Premier League title had already been secured.
Manchester City also seemed to suffer a drop in performances after announcing in February 2016 that Manuel Pellegrini would be leaving at the end of the campaign to make way for Pep Guardiola. In the first match following the announcement, City lost 3-1 at home to title rivals Leicester City. They lost six of their remaining 14 games, only scraping a fourth-placed finish in the end on goal difference.
There are other examples closer to home, such as Madrid's drab end to the 2012-13 season when it was obvious that Jose Mourinho was going to leave, and Barcelona missing out on the La Liga title and limply exiting the Champions League in 2016-17 after Luis Enrique had announced he was departing in March. Madrid have a lot of work to do in 2023-24 after finishing 10 points behind Barcelona last season and being outclassed by Manchester City in a 5-1 aggregate defeat in their Champions League semi-final tie. Having a manager who has just one year left is unlikely to help them make the changes they need, and the first sign of a slump in results next season will surely lead to questions about Ancelotti's focus and the players' motivation.
Madrid's loss, however, is Brazil's gain, and there's no question that the Selecao will have one of the best tacticians around, a man who has been able to get the best out of the most difficult dressing rooms in football while deal with the utmost pressure.
But the main problem is the timing. Ancelotti will only start working with the team in June, just weeks before the Copa America begins on June 20. If Real Madrid reach the Champions League final on June 1, he will have even less time to get to know his new players. While he will be no doubt be in contact with interim boss Diniz over the next year and be keeping a close eye on the team from afar, it is no substitute to actually seeing the players in training and working with them. And he will have his hands full with Madrid matters.
While the Copa America is nowhere near as important to Brazil as the World Cup, it is still a prestigious tournament, which they won in 2019 and reached the final of in 2021. And there will be extra attention on next year's edition due to it being held in the United States. To head into such an important tournament with so little time to get to know his players endangers Brazil's chances of winning it, and risks Ancelotti getting off to a bad start.
The Copa America is not the only thing Brazil should worry about while they wait for Ancelotti to begin work. They begin South America's infamously punishing World Cup qualifying campaign in September, and have six matches between then and November, including the always-anticipated home fixture against arch-rivals and world champions Argentina.
And in those six matches they will be led by Diniz, who, as well as being an interim manager and all the difficulties that brings with player motivation, has another job to worry about. While he has to lead the Selecao into World Cup qualifying, Diniz will continue in charge of Fluminense, one of the biggest clubs in Brazil. When September comes around, Fluminense will be focusing on the crucial stage of the Serie A championship and are likely to still be in the latter rounds of the Copa Libertadores, South America's equivalent of the Champions League. Juggling two enormous jobs at the same time will be far from easy for Diniz.
It is often said that Brazil has 200 million coaches, with everyone from Manaus to Porto Alegre having their own fierce opinion about how the national team should play. So it is a damning indictment of the lack of quality coaches in the country that the CBF felt it had to look outside of its borders for a new manager. But who can blame them? There is a dearth of Brazilian coaches in Europe's top-five leagues, and even among the most successful clubs in Brazil. Five of Flamengo's last eight coaches have been non-Brazilians (current manager Jorge Sampaoli is Argentine), while Palmeiras have a Portuguese coach in Abel Ferreira, as did current league leaders Botafogo until Luis Castro was poached by Saudi Arabian side Al Nassr.
But although it might be understandable that Brazil have decided to appoint Ancelotti instead of choosing from a mediocre pool of locally-born coaches, it still feels strange that an Italian will be in charge of the most successful international side ever and arguably the most passionate. Ancelotti will become the first foreign Brazil manager since Filpo Nunez, an Argentine, who took charge of a friendly against Uruguay in 1965. The only others were Uruguayan Ramon Platero, who was in charge for less than a month in 1925, and Portuguese Joreca, whose tenure in 1944 lasted just four days.
Source: goal.com
