Carlito... Finito
A great manager, but a greater man. Carlo Ancelott's time at Real Madrid is coming to an end.
Carlo Ancelotti is no stranger to the sack. He has been there, done that many a time, usually offered a handshake on the way out and sometimes a glass of wine later that evening. And much as you would expect, in true Carletto fashion, he’s come to see it less as a tragedy and more just a part of life: a gentle goodbye, with good tailoring.
This positive outlook might soon come in handy as his departure from Real Madrid at the end of the season is now all but official.
Finitito, we're told, is the Italian’s favourite word to describe these unpleasant moments. He picked it up from Guus Hiddink – longtime friend and fellow sufferer – who told him that in Spain, finitito isn’t a dramatic exit or a forceful exile. It is simply a cordial and classy ending, a cute and kind way of saying: “Thank you, it’s been great but it’s time to move on.”
And if there is one man in football for whom a sacking isn’t entirely unpleasant, it is Ancelotti. Because finitito isn’t rage or rebellion. It’s a pat on the back, a kiss on both cheeks, a check handed over and that’s that.
Ancelotti knows this, comes to expect it too, but that does not make it easy. And there is no denying that a sacking will always hurt a little, particularly for someone who seems to have this air of being taken for granted at nearly every club he has coached – spare only Everton, whose fanbase perhaps adored him oddly, in a way none of the others would.
Let's not forget, this is also a man who has been sacked in the middle of a match, not once but twice in his career. Down the tunnel at half-time, both at Juventus and at Chelsea, poor Carletto was told that his time was up. Players still out there. A half still to be played. And then: finitito.
In 2001, it was at Delle Alpi. Juventus were chasing the title in their final game of the season against Atalanta, just two points off first-placed Roma. A young Ancelotti was still learning the ropes in charge of a star-studded team featuring Zinedine Zidane, Alessandro del Piero, David Trezeguet, and Edwin van der Sar before he was rather abruptly shown the door at half-time, the title within reach but ultimately not theirs.
In 2011, history repeated itself at Goodison Park. Ancelotti, now part of Chelsea’s managerial merry-go-round, could barely make it halfway down the tunnel after a frustrating goalless first half before he was told by then-Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich that his time at the club had come to end. Chelsea would go on to lose to 10-man Everton, though it hardly mattered.
The idea that one of football’s most decorated managers could be sacked so often is, in itself, absurd. More absurd still is that that it’s happened this many times without any sort of drama. Finitito, right? Unfortunately, we’re now back at that familiar crossroads. Nice guy Carlo is set to get the boot at Real Madrid for the second time, drawing the curtain on one of the most storied managerial tenures in club history.
Ancelotti has in many ways been the perfect manager for Real Madrid. Much like his days managing that glorious AC Milan side of the early 2000s, this is a club where he has to balance the three volatile forces he knows better than anyone else: a powerful, borderline-megalomaniacal president (Berlusconi then, Florentino now), a squad of elite footballers, and some of the most passionate but demanding fans this sport has ever seen.
And he’s managed it all brilliantly, with charm and calm and that famous eyebrow raised ever so slightly. Across his two spells at the capital, Don Carlo – as he is affectionately called in Spain – has won 15 trophies: two league titles, two Copas del Rey, and three Champions Leagues. He has managed 341 games for the club, second only to the great Miguel Munoz who managed 604 across 14 years. His combined win percentage sits just below 70%.
But the numbers are really beside the point because if Ancelotti’s time at Madrid matters, it’s not just because of what he’s won. It’s how he’s done it.
In a sport that increasingly sees players as chess pieces – data points, tools, cogs in a system that must, at all costs, fit within tactical structures, systems, regimes and philosophies – Ancelotti remains a relic, even today. He is a football romantic, a man who sees his players as people more than athletes. In his six seasons at Madrid, you’d struggle to describe his tactical style, not because it doesn’t exist but because it never quite mattered.
His philosophy, such as it is, lives in a simple truth: when people feel good, they play well. When they feel trusted, they deliver. And when they feel loved, really, truly loved, they win. They win league titles in all of Europe’s big five leagues. They win countless cup finals. And then they win five European Cups.
But above all, Ancelotti understands that football, like life, should be kept simple. At Madrid, especially, he knows he is coaching players far better than the level he managed as a stocky defensive midfielder in his heyday. He knows he does not need to teach them how to play football, he simply needs to trust them to do what he knows they can do. And in this strange, star-lit ecosystem, that works perfectly.
Until, of course, it doesn’t. Times change and the game moves on. Allowing your players to be brilliant is a wonderful strategy when there is a synergy in the group, when brilliance is seen as a collective outcome that begins with a tackle and sprint and ends with a pass or goal. But when the synergy fades, as it has this season, the structure, the environment, the ease of Ancelotti-ball becomes fragile and penetrable.
From the start of the season, there have been cracks. Injuries and poor squad planning from the board have not helped and Ancelotti has in many ways been dealt a raw hand. He has bore the burden for problems that were not his to solve, while petulant behaviour from the club and its players made bad matters worse.
But through it all, he has remained dignified. No bitterness, no resentment, just Carlo, ever the gentleman.
And of all his previous sackings, maybe this is the one that hurts the least. Not because it isn’t sad, but because it feels shared. For months now, Ancelotti has hinted that this would be his final act in the European elite. Rumours of the Brazil post persist, to varying degrees of certainty. But Carlo – the romantic, the loyalist – was never going to walk away on his own. Not from these players, and certainly not from this club: His club.
Still, it seems now that the time has come. The club wants new energy and Xabi Alonso, an Ancelotti disciple himself, looks to be the frontrunner to take over. And Carlo? Well, he looks more ready than he does resigned, perhaps with a new chapter already in mind.
In the end, he will leave Real Madrid not only as a legend, but as something bigger. As proof that, even at the highest level, in the biggest club in the world, on the biggest stages of them all, there’s still room for care, for understanding, for kindness.
And perhaps that’s all he’ll want written in the end: that he was a great manager and an even greater man. Perhaps that’s all that needs to be said. Finitito.