Voted best coach of the year during the Ballon d’Or ceremony, Carlo Ancelotti spoke to France Football. The Madrid coach regretted a bad decision made during his first visit to Spain.
If times are tough at the moment for Real Madrid and Carlo Ancelotti, the Italian coach is making a success of his second stint on the Merengue bench. Since his return in 2021, he has won two La Liga titles, a Copa del Rey, two Spanish Super Cups, two European Super Cups, a Club World Cup and two Champions Leagues. An XXL prize list which has grown on a personal level, since the Transalpine was voted best coach of the season during the Ballon d’Or ceremony.
During an interview for France Football, the former AC Milan and PSG technician revealed the few regrets he may have had during his thirty-year career. “It’s impossible to only make good decisions in thirty years. For example, I made a bad one here in Madrid, after my first year (2013-2014). I was very close to extending my contract, the club wanted to keep me, but I pushed too much in relation to my salary and they stopped (sacked after his second season, in May 2015). It was a mistake, the worst I could have made. But it allowed me to learn,” he confided.
Regrets towards Thierry Henry
Ancelotti also made mistakes on the pitch. “At Juventus, I had Thierry Henry (in 1999). When he started his career, he played as a winger. And when he went to Arsenal, he became a formidable striker, with (Arsène) Wenger. And I didn’t see him as a goalscorer.” Under the Italian’s orders, the former striker had only scored three goals in 16 games. Statistics which radically changed upon his arrival in England, since Thierry Henry remains the top scorer in Arsenal’s history, with 228 goals in 377 games.
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