Ancelotti meanwhile, has been a dead man walking for some time at Stamford Bridge, and we’d all been waiting for the confirmation of his departure. It duly came just after a 1-0 defeat to Everton yesterday.
A poor defeat summed up Chelsea’s campaign. They had struggled for so much of the season, though it had begun so well, with six successive victories.
But Ancelotti’s sacking is a curious one. Here is an Italian coach with a proven track record in the competition that Roman Abramovich covets the most. Ancelotti has demonstrated in his previous roles in Italy that he is a world class coach. To have given him just two seasons to win the Champions League is madness. Sir Alex Ferguson took five attempts before he finally won it, and 12 years since his appointment. Arsene Wenger still hasn’t lifted the coveted trophy. Ferguson and Wenger, models of stability and success, would surely have been fired were they Chelsea boss under the Russian’s orders, which is perhaps the most illustrative demonstration of his folly.
It is a strange state of affairs. No manager guarantees the Champions League – not even Mourinho. Arguably the closest you’d come to a manager who can bring the trophy to you is Rafa Benitez. Not only did he win the Champions League for Liverpool and get them to the 2007 final, but he beat almost all of Europe’s top teams in his time at the club, demonstrating himself to be the tactical equal of all whom he faced. Barcelona were beaten on their own ground, whilst Chelsea and Arsenal were both dispatched. Real Madrid were humiliated, whilst the Italian trio of Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan all lost to Benitez’s side. Benitez after all, had a tactical acumen accustomed to success in the top competition in Europe. It didn’t work for him in England because it was a league in which tactics rarely have any influence on results.
And that if anything appears to be Ancelotti’s downfall. To lose to Manchester United in the Champions League is easy enough and surely not a sackable offence. But the Premier League is the graveyard of managers whose approach is essentially tactical. Top class managers such as Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez and now Ancelotti have suffered in England, because too many sides; Bolton, Stoke, Birmingham, Blackburn etc are inherently unpredictable tactically.
Benitez often complained about this. His system always worked in Europe, but in the league it went wrong, where teams would hit long balls forward and generally refuse to engage in tactical warfare, instead preferring to put the ball into ‘the mixer’ and see what happened next. English football is far removed from Spain or Italy in this sense, representing more of a reliance on percentages and fitness than on tactics or possession. It was unsuited to Benitez, and it proved to be for Ancelotti too.
That is why Mourinho was so successful; he isn’t the tactician he is often claimed to be. The Portuguese is a brilliant motivator, team builder and meticulously prepared. His tactics aren’t innovative, they’re just far more thoroughly carried out thanks to his attention to detail and unrivalled ability to rally players behind him. Ancelotti, though, is different. He is a manager for whom tactics are paramount.
For Chelsea, they now embark on a period of rebuilding. They will spend this summer, and add youth to the squad for their next coach. But how long will they have before Abramovich’s patience runs out?
