Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches

by Carlo Ancelotti

  Two days later he came to us and asked for our forgiveness. He could never be mean through and through. He’s a teddy bear, deep down. The secret of our track record is the fact that he’s a regular guy. There’s no need for him to be the Special One to win. It’s enough to have an inner tranquillity and to stay out of the limelight, to keep from setting off fireworks in front of the television cameras.

  Carletto and I have always had a comfortable and close working relationship. We’ve always talked about everything. Whenever he loses his temper, he unfailingly comes to me afterwards and asks: ‘Paolo, was I wrong?’ Carlo doesn’t want to do everything on his own, he wants to bring people with him and delegate, which is a sign of his considerable intelligence. This is why he can win wherever he goes: at AC Milan, at Chelsea, at Real Madrid – anywhere. His knowledge of global football is enormous. He has mind-boggling experience of every aspect of the game. Even as a player he was an outstanding organizer and reader of the game, full of ideas. You can’t really criticize him, in either technical or human terms: if you do, you’re not being fair.

  At AC Milan, from the times of Arrigo Sacchi onwards, we’ve had lots of coaches, nearly all of them winners, but each has managed the group in his own manner. Leaving aside the question of methods and results, if I were asked who brought the highest quality of life in those years, I’d have to say it was Carletto. Before he came to Milanello, he was fairly rigid, less open to tactical innovation, but over time he grew. He evolved, and we evolved with him, because you need to give a man like that players who know enough not to take advantage of him. Underlying everything that we did was a two-way trust. Over the years there have been people who took advantage of the situation, but we were quick to make sure they understood how to behave. In particular, we explained to them that they had to respect Carletto, always, and no matter what, because of the magical football he seems to be able to conjure up, for the way he talks to his team and for the way he behaves off the field.

  Everybody in this book will describe him in a thousand different ways. For me, he is a friend and I miss him.

  10. Values

  Managing the Madness

  People outside the game sometimes wonder how I go about ‘managing the madness’ that is football today. For me, it’s normal. It’s all I have known since I left home some forty years ago. I was a player for nearly twenty years and now a coach for even longer. I only know this madness.

  Of course, I see the statistics. In England the job with the highest turnover is chambermaid and the second is football coach. The League Managers Association send me their magazine every month and I’m shocked and saddened when I see that if the manager of an English club lasts more than twenty-seven months he is defined as ‘long term’. In Italy, the period would be more like twenty-seven hours.

  I also see that less than half of football coaches in England ever get another job in football if they are sacked from their first post. They never come back into the game. I recall how close I was to getting the sack in my first job at Reggiana – after seven games, when we were bottom of the table. The only thing that saved me was my name. I was still famous for being a player and I was from the region. Today, I feel so lucky – so privileged and thankful – to be at the top of this profession, because I know that it could easily have been so different.

  People say that the madness is because of the fans, but I cannot control that. In my job there are three things that I cannot control: the president, the supporters and the media. I have learned not to worry so much about these. What would be the point? I want to work on what I can control, and that is my relationship with the players. That is my only job. Admittedly, they can be mad too, but at least I am limiting the chaos.

  Madness or not, I love my job. I respect the people that I work with and I have the respect from those that work with me. It’s the perfect role. If I can’t be a player any more, then this is what I want. They say that if you are in a job you love, you never work a day in your life, and it’s true.

  I get so much out of working with the elite performers in the game. By that I mean the people who display the three different components of the top players: first, their own individual talent; second, the contextual talent – how they fit in, culturally; and third, their team talent – how much they contribute. The talent is not complete if a player only uses it for himself. To be a great champion, a truly great player, it’s not enough just to have individual talent. Everyone might know that you are very talented, but to be fuoriclasse, as we say in Italy – out of the ordinary, a cut above – you must have it all. To watch this flourish as part of a team I’m managing – it’s fantastic.

  References

  I hope I have made it clear throughout this book just how important it is to have people as ‘reference points’ – people who set an example and act as role models by doing the right things. For me, when I was very young, I looked up to Sandro Mazzola – after my father, of course. I was an Inter fan in those days and he was my favourite player because I thought he was the strongest. He could be a striker or offensive midfielder and I loved the technique of his play.

  My favourite quotation about teamwork is from basketball’s Michael Jordan, perhaps one of the greatest ever individual players in world sport, but an even greater team player. It is a quotation that should be on every dressing-room wall:

  There are plenty of teams, in every sport, that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren’t willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence win championships.

  I love the movies and I have always been a fan of Robert De Niro. Nowhere does he embody all the ideals I hold about him more than in The Deer Hunter. I’ve seen this movie maybe ten times and the main thing for me is that it’s all about friendship and relying on each other in the most extreme situations.

  It is the same with another favourite of mine at the moment, Life Is Beautiful. Again, the situation is terrible but the solution is great. What I like is the idea that one man is able to change a bad situation through irony while remaining within it. He makes the situation bearable for his son while dealing with the reality himself. This is sacrifice.

  I love The Godfather. The film shows that the two most important things are respect and calm authority. Vito Corleone is a leader who should be a reference because he was respected by everyone – the family, friends, the people who worked with him and even his enemies. Of course, I know that he does bad things and that the Mafia is a criminal organization, but what I am talking about is the way his family operated internally, the respect. I know some would say that it is fear and not respect, but it is fear born of a recognition that he is the leader. They are the same qualities, albeit in a bad direction, as those who lead for good.

  I am impressed by people who work to find new ideas, no matter what their field is. After visiting a cardiology convention in San Francisco, I invested in a company that is developing a new valve to help people with heart problems. It’s unbelievable, what it can do. I have a friend who wants to do movie animation. The sheer amount of work they have to put in, painting thousands of images to create it, impresses me. I’m interested in how people are able to think differently. In football we do not do this enough – and I include myself in this. We need to think more laterally.

  Switching Off

  I have to admit to being a little obsessive, but this is true of most successful people – especially professional athletes. How else can you explain the hours and hours of repetitive practice needed to be of the required technical standard, and that’s before the hours needed to understand the game, to manage the game. I am obsessive about order. Everything for me is tidy and organized. Even things like my clothes – I
know exactly where my white shirts are, my blue shirts. The little details – they are all in order. I get this from being with the priests, when I lived at the college at Parma. I had a tiny room, so I had to be organized.

  I am still obsessive and it is still all about the game. For me, money is not so important as long as I have enough not to worry. Zlatan and I would often sit and talk about how we got to where we are. We are both from poor backgrounds and find it difficult to believe we are wealthy enough not to worry. When I read that some managers insist on being the highest paid at the club – higher even than all the players – I am surprised.

  I’ve never insisted on that. I’ve accepted that as a manager you can always find a player who earns more than you, because … let’s face it, the players are more important than you. Which person in football thinks that the manager is more important than the players? There is not one. The supporters think that the players are the most important, the president thinks the same, and the players – they certainly know that they are the most important. The only time the manager is the most important for everyone is when the team is losing. The manager is only important when there needs to be someone to blame.

  People have said to me, ‘Why would you pay a player more than you earn?’ For me, money is not the key driver; success drives me. So it’s simple. If I am to be successful then I need the best players, and if the best players cost more than I do, I want them playing for me. I’m actually being selfish, really, not nice.

  The president of Roma back when I was playing, Dino Viola, said to me, ‘It’s not important what you earn, it’s important what you save; but remember, the more you earn, the more you will be respected.’ This last bit he added only after he’d negotiated my first contract with me, of course.

  With all the demands on my time – to deal with the players, the game, the people at the club, the media, the latest developments and the opposition – and the pressures in the game – to get results, play attractive football and keep my job – there is a lot, you might imagine, to keep me up at night. Earlier in my career it was true: I would stay awake agonizing over decisions – that’s my obsessive nature again. But now I’m able to switch off well.

  Experience helps, of course, and it’s important to have a happy home to go back to. My home life is my sanctuary, where I recharge my batteries, and this is crucial when things are not going well, such as after a bad result or even losing my job. I like to lose myself in the domestic environment. I love to cook at home. You may have noticed the importance I attach to mealtime, as a social thing, for people to bond. Maybe that’s being Italian.

  Football, however, is my life, my passion, my hobby, and I never really ‘leave’ football. As the Eagles say about Hotel California, you might be able to check out, but leaving isn’t an option. Switching off is my checkout time from football, but I’ll never leave.

  The only time I have any difficulty sleeping is when we lose a game, because then I start replaying every part of the game in my mind. I work out what we must do to improve, what I have to tell the players the day after.

  During weeks when there are no matches I have no problem at all sleeping. I like the Spanish approach, to have a short sleep after lunch – just an hour or two – when we have a game in the evening. Some of the players also sleep then, and we are only beginning to understand now just important sleep is for recovery, for strength, for the brain. We need to know more about it. Luckily for me, I’m good at it.

  VALUES: THE QUIET WAY

  Always keep your reference points in mind – from early mentors to those whose achievements you aspire to follow.

  Switching off is important – find your sanctuary.

  To thine own self be true – you can’t actually be anyone else, so don’t try.

  In Their Own Words … The Players

  Alessandro Nesta on Carlo

  I first met Carlo five months before I signed for Milan because I was with the national team, training at Milanello. He was around the training ground a lot and he came to me and said, ‘Next season, you have to come here.’ ‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘I don’t like here. I want to stay at Lazio because you know I am a Lazio fan. Also, I don’t like Milan; I prefer Rome.’ Three months later I signed for Milan.

  Carlo was the most important coach in my career because he changed my mentality. In Rome it was different: playing for Lazio meant that, if you won the derby against Roma, it’s a good season. In Milan, you have to win every single game – if not, next season you will be out. He taught me that, at a club like Milan, every game is like a cup final. Carlo played for Milan and coached Milan – he knew the Milan way. He explained that this was the culture of the club, and if I wanted to stay at Milan for a long time I needed to learn it early and maintain that standard every day, in every training session. If not, goodbye Sandro.

  In training Carlo was very strong. He would build a winning mentality throughout the club. This is the difference between a club like Manchester City and Manchester United. Manchester United has a big history with a culture of winning. When you sign for Manchester United, nothing is acceptable except winning. Manchester City are building, but they don’t have a history. Milan has that history.

  I took a while to settle after leaving Rome – I wasn’t happy at first. Carlo helped me by constantly reminding me of the professionalism I had to show each and every day. ‘Remember,’ he told me, ‘this is the best place for you to be. If you want to be the best then you have to follow the best. Watch and learn from Maldini, from Alessandro Costacurta – from all the Milan professionals. If you follow them, you will understand what to do.’ If I behaved like that, then I could stay for ever.

  I became a better player at Milan. Before, I had played like I was alone among the other defenders, playing for myself, but at Milan we practised three or four times a week with five defenders – Maldini, Cafu, Costacurta, Kakha Kaladze and me – plus the goalkeeper and central defensive midfielder. This was when Andrea Pirlo was learning his new role.

  When I think about Carlo, I naturally compare him with other coaches I have played for, like Dino Zoff and Sven-Göran Eriksson. Eriksson was a good coach and a good person, but if you ask me what the difference was, I won two Champions Leagues with Carlo. We worked together for maybe eight years but it was different, because Carlo had to have extra skills to coach at Milan. It’s a difficult club because you have Silvio Berlusconi and Adriano Galliani and they push you and press you every day. Galliani is strong but Berlusconi is worse, trust me. But Carlo made sure that no problems ever found their way to the team. He was a wall between the team and those two, which is very important, especially when they tried to put pressure on the players. It’s vital to have a coach like Carlo in these situations. He’s the best.

  When you talk about Carlo and the game you have to understand how clever he is with his tactics, He was always prepared to listen and learn and then to change if he thought it would benefit the team. He thinks about the game and he’s not afraid to change.

  At Milan he switched a lot tactically. When I arrived Pirlo was a number 10, an attacking midfielder, but Carlo understood that the right position for him was in front of the back line. The team changed because with Pirlo there the others had to be aware that they could get into better positions. Andriy Shevchenko was more able to play on the edge of the opposition’s back line and know that Pirlo could deliver the pass for him to go behind. Carlo recognized this and convinced Pirlo to play there.

  Carlo was always very clear about identifying mistakes. ‘This is your mistake – look at the video,’ he’d say. For me that’s no problem. Carlo’s relationship with the senior players meant that he could address the players about anything, and they had so much respect for him that they would accept and own up to their mistakes.

  Carlo knows that, if you have a champion, a top player, you can say where they went wrong and they will not be upset – they will learn from it. When you go down to the second division, third division, t
he players are different. They are more defensive because they are less confident. But when you work with, say, Cristiano Ronaldo, you can say anything, because a champion is a champion and they understand. Carlo was a champion as a player and as a coach, so he knows this. I listened and learned from the best.

  For the great players, winning is everything, and as long as the coach can help you win, you listen. I know everyone likes to talk about when we lost to Liverpool in the Champions League final in 2005, so I will talk about it – but you must understand that I prefer to speak about when we win. When we won Carlo always said he was 100 per cent sure we were going to win – he was very confident. But when we lost, such as in that final, people ask if it was Carlo’s fault. Whose fault was it? I say it was our fault, the players, because when we got to half-time we had played the best half ever. In the dressing room, he said, ‘Come on, guys, we’re not finished yet. No, no, no – not yet. Go outside and score one more, two more, because after that the game is dead.’ But we allowed Liverpool to play for ten minutes – only ten minutes out of 120 – and that cost us the game.

  Carlo’s only mistake? He didn’t choose me to take a penalty. In the final in Manchester, against Juventus, I took a penalty and scored. In Istanbul, Carlo didn’t pick me, and this is his only mistake with me in eight years together. Not bad, eh?