On the evidence of Ancelotti’s remarkably sanguine memoir, he is unlikely to be fazed by the tricky situation he faces at Chelsea. Although managers of British teams have long sought to create what Okwonga describes as “one-party states” – wielding power over not only the team affairs but of choosing and buying players and more – Ancelotti is firmly in the European tradition of a manager-coach, whose brief is to stick to footballing matters only.
As a manager of several of Italy’s biggest clubs over the past decade, Ancelotti knows his job is simply to help the team to win, whatever situation he inherits. If he doesn’t win, then sooner or later he’ll be out. He remembers how at the close of his second full season at the famous Turin club Juventus, he was summoned to the office of owner and Fiat car boss Umberto Agnelli, who greeted him simply: “My dear Ancelotti, the new Juventus coach is Marcello Lippi.”
This book, written with journalist Alessandro Alciato and translated from Italian into rather joyous, emotional English, is revealing and highly entertaining – even for non-Chelsea supporters. Ancelotti delights in retelling choice anecdotes from his eventful career. On one supposedly secret trip to meet potential employers in Istanbul, he recounts how he is greeted by thousands of fans at the airport as well as men bearing carpets. When, under contract with Milan, he turns up at a hotel in Paris for a clandestine first meeting with Chelsea’s billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich, he bumps into a fellow manager who is also under the impression that he alone has been invited.