On a historic night at the Bernabéu,
Real Madrid’s coach Carlo Ancelotti
was quick to look forward, suggesting
his side clinching La Liga with four
games to spare was the ideal
preparation for the second leg of their
finely-poised Champions League
semi-final against Manchester City at
the same venue on Wednesday.
Ancelotti made history by
becoming the first manager to win
league titles in each of Europe’s five
biggest leagues, and Real extended
their own record by securing the
Spanish crown for the 35th time.
As the stadium was engulfed by
joyous scenes, Ancelotti said
celebrating “is great for the mental
aspect” but stressed yesterday was a
work day. “We are professionals,” heHistory for
Ancelotti –
now he eyes
City scalp
MATT TENCHIAN
HAWKEY
European Football
16 1GG Monday May 2 2022 | the times
MINO RAIOLA
Super agent who
made hundreds
of millions
from player
deals
Obituary,
page 42said. “Tonight we all celebrate
together. Tomorrow we train and on
Wednesday we have another
important game.” His last words to
the fans were: “Let’s go against Man
City!”
With that game in mind Ancelotti
rested Karim Benzema but the
34-year-old striker did come off the
bench and score in their 4-0 rout of
Espanyol. Ancelotti won the
Champions League with Real in 2014
in his first spell with the club but not
La Liga, a failure that led to him being
sacked a year later. However the Real
president Florentino Pérez convinced
him to return at the start of this
season, and his words after winning
the title suggested Ancelotti would be
there for a while. “For us, Ancelotti is
just the best,” he said.TITLES IN FIVE COUNTRIES
Ancelotti becomes the first manager
to win the title in Europe’s top five
leagues
Serie A AC Milan, 2003-04
Premier League Chelsea, 2009-10
Ligue 1 PSG, 2012-13
Bundesliga B Munich, 2016-17
La Liga Real Madrid, 2021-22Champions League
AC Milan (2002-03, 2006-07)
Real Madrid (2013-14)Ancelotti celebrates the title win
with his Real players — and a cigarA once dominant club that still feels confused
about whether signing Cristiano Ronaldo was a
problem, a solution or a nifty trick to mask all
sorts of institutional dysfunctions. A declined
former champion obliged to watch the title race
being fought out up the road between red and
blue clubs who both used to view the fallen giant
as their chief, uncatchable rival.
That’s probably as far as the likeness between
Manchester United and Juventus, or between the
Premier League’s end of season and the
cliffhanger that is the Serie A campaign, can be
stretched. For one thing, Juventus, who said
farewell to Ronaldo in the summer just after he
had outscored everybody else in Italy’s top
division, can expect — unlike United — to be
participating in the next Champions League.
For another, the clubs jousting for the
Scudetto, AC Milan and Inter Milan, have been
made starkly aware that, lively though their duel
is, their standards trail a long way behind those
of the Premier League’s best. Liverpool beat
Milan twice in the group phase of the
Champions League; they knocked Inter out
rather more comfortably in the round-of-16 than
the aggregate scoreline of 2-1 suggests, and one
shudders to think what Jürgen Klopp’s machine,
on a good night, may have done to Juventus on a
jittery one, given that Villarreal beat Juventus
3-0 in Turin in March. That’s the Villarreal who
were barely able to escape their own half of the
pitch on Wednesday at Anfield.
None of which makes the tussle for the
Scudetto any less compelling after a weekend in
which Milan nerves frayed on the way to a 1-0
win over Fiorentina, which maintained their two-
point lead over second-placed Inter, who won 2-1
away to Udinese. Napoli, seven points off Milan,
in third, put half a dozen goals past Sassuolo.
Milan’s three remaining fixtures look tougher
than Inter’s, but Stefano Pioli, the head coach,
feels emboldened by yesterday’s seventh
clean sheet in eight matches. The
contest against Fiorentina, settled by
a single, late Rafael Leão goal,
featured a stunning reflex save
while at 0-0 from the Milan
goalkeeper Mike Maignan and
several authoritative blocks and
interceptions by Fikayo Tomori,
who can start believing he is
about to join a very select group
of England internationals who
have called themselves champions
of Italy. Its first post-War member
was Jimmy Greaves; its most recent
Ashley Young, with Inter last May.
For Pioli, 56 and with almost two decades of
coaching in Serie A and Serie B on his resumé, a
first senior trophy feels within reach, and if he
guides his players successfully through the next
270 minutes, it will be a fairytale of a comeback.
As Pioli praised the club’s executives after
yesterday’s win — “they have shown faith in me”
— his mind went back to the Sliding Doors
moment when he was stopped from heading for
the exit.
It was mid-2020, Milan had terms agreed for
the arrival, for the next season, of one Ralf
Rangnick, the German offered a powerful role
that reached well beyond his duties as head
coach. The club had turned to him while deep in
crisis. But as his formal start date neared, they
played better and better under Pioli, who had
come in as a stop-gap in 2019. In the post-
lockdown period of the 2019-20 campaign, Pioli’s
Milan took 30 points from a possible 36.
Pioli stayed. Rangnick was told he would not
be required, and was freed to offer himself as awould-be rescuer to a
fallen giant elsewhere. The
rest is history. Last season,
Milan qualified for the
Champions League for the first
time in eight years. They finished
runners-up to Antonio Conte’s Inter, a highest
Serie A placing for nine years. By this season’s
end, they may also have an enhanced budget.
The Bahrain-based private equity group,
Investcorp, has registered interest in a takeover,
valuing the club at €1.2 billion.
Probably their most valuable playing asset, the
22-year-old Leão, soothed a sold-out San Siro
yesterday. A series of chances had been spurned
by Olivier Giroud, Theo Hernández, Ante Rebic
and Leão himself as the game entered its last ten
minutes. The goal was part gift — Leão received
the ball directly from the Fiorentina goalkeeper
Pietro Terracciano’s misdirected pass — but the
finish was composed. “It lifted a weight off us,
obviously,” Pioli said. “Again, we made so many
chances. There is bound to be tension in games
at this stage. We all feel it, and it becomes harder
to maintain our energy the longer they go on.”
Milan are making a habit of cutting it fine. Last
weekend, Sandro Tonali’s stoppage-time winneraway to Lazio secured the lead of Serie A, Tonali
set up by substitute Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The
Swede, 40, has not had quite the impact this
season as he did during the previous 18 months
of his late-career reunion with Milan, but when
fit he is still Pioli’s default replacement for Giroud
in a novel job share for the veterans. Pioli
suspects that long periods of Giroud, 35, sharing
the forward line with Ibrahimovic would be low
on collective pressing and even lower on
combined sprinting speed. But acting as a sort of
tag team, one of the two ensures that there is a
wise guide in an otherwise young side.
Last summer’s move to Italy from Chelsea has
been good for Giroud. He introduced himself to
Milan fans with one of the sweetly-timed volleys
that are part of his repertoire, against Cagliari on
his home league debut, and has scored some key
goals in resonant fixtures, such as his double in
February’s victorious Milan derby and the
winner against Napoli last month. Giroud needs
one more goal to reach double figures for the
league campaign, something he last achieved as
an Arsenal player in 2017. He needs to keep his
nerve, and advise the youngbloods around him
how to keep theirs, to win a league title, which
eluded him over his nine years in London.Resurgent Milan are ready to write
the final chapter of Pioli’s fairytale
Leão’s late goal
was enough to
beat Fiorentina
and boost the
title hopes of
Pioli, insetDANIELE MASCOLO/REUTERS*