Euro Leagues: Davide Ancelotti Special

30:39So I've already begun my job. I went to Holland, I flew to Amsterdam to watch Netherlands versus Norway, which was a really good game. And also then I went to Wembley last week to watch England versus Japan. So honestly, fascinated and again, so thankful. And one which I'll jump into and give me all. If Davide believes in you, it's difficult to not feel that confidence and that level of care that you can go and do a really good job. All the things that I've mentioned here, to be honest, before you let me go, are really important things, the way we spoke about his detail and things like that. But, you know, probably the most important thing maybe is, you know, the fact that he can carry the weight of the expectation on his shoulders at big clubs every day, every game, which actually allows everyone who works for him to give the best, you know, feel.

31:29He made me feel so valued and I was able to perform at my best level for him. And, you know, we had a real good relationship. It was, you know, it was an incredible part of my life so far. So if Brazil end up playing England at some point, Andy, then you're effectively a spy behind enemy lines. You'd be like Bielsa with the binoculars looking over the fence, yeah? Well, you know, don't forget, I am Scouse. Yeah. So I am a Scouse Brazilian now, if I'm being honest. Andy, it's been lovely to have you on. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I'll see you soon, guys, OK?

32:04Take care. Ciao. Ciao. Andy Mangan who has worked with Davide at Botafogo and is working at the World Cup with Brazil this summer and also used to play up front with Jamie Vardy for Fleetwood Town. So I mean, everyone's got great stories. And he scored against Chelsea. Yeah. And he scored against Filipe Luiz, who was the player that was marking him in the box of Chelsea. And Filipe Luiz was the manager of Flamengo. So when we faced Flamengo, Andy was really proud about his goal in the FA Cup and said, Filipe, you remember that goal that you were marking? And Felipe, that marked the best players in the world, didn't remember.

32:41But it was nice. Felipe is a really good guy and he will have a fantastic career in Europe. And it was a good moment.

32:59New teams. New rules. A new era. Formula One returns. The engines are revving. People are getting excited. Hear every race live on BBC Sounds. It's all ice and the lights. Hands for the floor. On 5 Live Sports. On the Football Daily Podcast. The Euro Leagues. With Steve Crossman. Should we talk about Botafogo then? Yeah. Tell us about that experience. Botafogo was unexpected. was a call from John Textor when I was on holidays with my family during the summer. I decided after some conversations with clubs at the end of the season to go with the national team and stay all this season with the national team until the World Cup.

33:52But suddenly called John Textor and convinced me. I was watching at the time the World Cup, the club's World Cup in the States and Botafogo was a good side that competed well in this group against PSG. They beat PSG in the group. They competed well against Atletico Madrid and they had a good squad. So they were down in the table. They were ninth. They were going through a difficult moment. So I took over after the World Cup and we started quite well the first three or four games. And then we started to drop a little bit. We were not consistent with the result, but it was, I think, part of the process also because we lost important players through the end of the market because of some problems that we had financially.

34:46But then it was a really good experience for me. First experience as a manager, so I learned so many things in a difficult environment because Brazilian football for managers is a difficult environment. So if you consider that now we are nine games into the next, the new season. And there are 10 managers sacked in the league. So yeah, more than one per game. So it's a tough environment. The pressure is really high. You need results. But it was what I wanted. So I wanted to see how I could react to a difficult environment like that. And in fact, so there was a project that included some of those players that were sold.

35:32and it was only five months because you decided to only be five months because you had a longer contract. Because perhaps you were saying that where the club was going to is not exactly the same place you wanted to take it? Yeah, the project was to finish the season, to improve the situation of the team at the table and to get the Libertadores that was reached at the end of the season. The feelings were good, but then we sat down at the end of the season and looking into this season that would start in January We had different vision. So for me and for the club, the best solution was to finish the relationship.

36:10But it's an experience that I will never forget. I will never forget because it's the first one. And I had a good relationship with the group. You will never forget your first group of players as a manager. And after those 10 consecutive wins and the fact that you've reached the Libertadores, I think there is a queue of Brazilian clubs that I would like to take you if you wanted to go back to Brazil. It's an option. It's a market open for the future. It's a league that is really tough. It's competitive. The level is high. It's difficult for managers because, as I said at the beginning, Brazilian culture is to win, is a winning culture.

36:53It's not only to play well, especially to win. And this pressure is on every manager in the league. The expectation is high because the fans are a lot. The fans are because there is a lot of people. So in Rio you have four teams. You have Flamengo that has to win every game. If you are Vasco da Gama, you have to win every game. And if you have Botafogo, you have to win. And if you are Fluminense, you have to win every game. But then in San Paolo, you have Palmeiras, Corinthians, Sao Paulo, and you have Santos. And are big clubs with big history. And for these clubs, played the best place in the history of football.

37:36For Botafogo played Garincha, for example. Nilton Santos, the history of the SLS. So the expectation is really high. And when the expectation is really high, for the manager is tough because you don't have always the possibility to win every game. There are quite a lot of those cities in the world where there are massive football clubs and you have to win and that's the only way. And another one of them is Glasgow. And there was a period where I think a lot of people thought you might be the next head coach at the time of Rangers. So was that quite close at any point? Yeah, it was a club that I had conversations with there is an interview process as always now in modern football where you have to go through and I went through this process well but then at the end they have to pick one and and they didn't pick me but the the process went well and the relationship with with the club is good and and appreciate the fact that they consider me for the job so did the interview go something like right Mr Ancelotti, how do you want your team to play?

38:50More or less it's like this. So you have to answer a lot of questions by the clubs about your philosophy, about how you train, about how you cope with the pressure, with the media. But at the end of the day, until you don't see a manager working on a daily basis, it's difficult to evaluate. There's not a bad interview, a support job interview ever. There's not a bad one. There's nobody that says, look, I blew up under pressure. Yeah, yeah, I blew up under pressure. I don't like to win. Don't ask me to have a winning culture, winning mentality. My first job interview was in a call centre and I didn't get it.

39:31I need you to clarify me one thing, though. I heard that when the Rangers situation was possible, you could have gone to Glasgow, that you would approach players, players that you knew that had been with you at Real Madrid, like Lucas Vázquez or Modric, it's like, would you like something like this? And then, of course, they may have had other plans. I wrote that in the BBC in a blog. And there's so much passion in Glasgow and towards football that that story was converted that Luka Modric is definitely going to Rangers, which I never said. But it's true that you have that direct contact with those players.

40:06And was it a possibility? Not a possibility, but did you ask, would you be interested? Reading that news was a good idea. honestly. I could have asked him. But why not? I mean, Ranjas is a big club with a big history in Europe, plays European competition. Luka Modric needs to prepare for the World Cup. At the end, he decided to do something like this. So to go to play in a big club with history, someone that he could represent. But no, honestly, I didn't ask anyone because I didn't get the jobs and I was not sure to have the job. So why asking? But it was a good idea. Is it like any other job interview that anybody has when you come out and you know, like, do you know what?

40:55I think I nailed that. Normally, when you think that you got it, you don't get it. Is that right? Yeah. I thought I'd got the call center job. And when you think you were bad in the interview, maybe sometimes you get the surprise. But it's changed, honestly, because also speaking with my father, he says, when I started, when I was a young manager, the process was different. The sporting director called and said, you have the job. I decided that is you. Now, I think there is a long process also because the decision making is made by different people. It's difficult that there is one owner that is connected with one sporting director.

41:44Now you have to convince different people. So that's why they need to be sure and they need to have different interviews and then they need to discuss who's the best profile are there ways in which being your father's son can make these interviews more difficult because i'm sure there'll be an amazing number of ways in which in which you've benefited from your dad's wisdom and experience and all that kind of thing but equally you are your own man and you don't want people just to look at you as carlo's son right i can't uh this is a good question so uh i am in in a process and this process is is creating my own identity as a manager but i cannot pretend to have this now that i only coached for six months a professional team i know and i want to be separated i have i want to have my own identity as a manager but i understand that at the moment I am still connected to him and for some people I am like him, but I am not exactly like him.

42:56I have a similar character, but I am a different kind of manager. You joined your dad at Bayern Munich and I suppose there has been an evolution from there to Brazil. So what has been that evolution as an assistant to Carlo? He took a step, a big step at the beginning. So at the beginning I was from a fitness coach, I became an assistant coach, but in football today you have a lot of fitness coaches that are coaches. So I was already a coach before. So when we were in Madrid in our first step, we were more or less coaches because I have to go further back at Paris Saint-Germain. When I started, I started in the academy.

43:46And the methodology that they were starting to use was the methodology that came from Barcelona in the academy. So they started to work only with the ball. So for us fitness coaches, we had to coach drills with the ball as well. So my coaching experience started there. So from a fitness coach to a coach didn't change a lot. And then at Bayern in the first season, I had a big step in January because Paul Clement, that was at the time the assistant manager, got an offer from Swansea in the Premier League. And my father, I was sure that was coming another one, but my father told me, no, you will be the assistant manager.

44:30And I was 26. and so I got the responsibility before I was aware I was ready to to have it so it gave me responsibility when I wasn't ready to have this kind of responsibility and that made me improve a lot and and commit commit a lot to improve and to to show that I can I can be at the level no because at the end coaching is teaching so you have to convince to teach the players convince the players through your knowledge to make them understand that there is something that they can improve that there is something that they are not making as they could and through that I think you can convince them even if they are older than you and they want more Champions League than you and because then the players will appreciate I think the the coach if he has the ability and the skill to be coachable because not every player has it So you made your debut as a manager as a number one in a game against Roma is that right that your dad was suspended He was suspended because he lost the plot yeah Lost the plot A game against Atalanta because they didn't give us a penalty at the end and in the in the counter-attack we conceded and we lost so for my father it's difficult to be fuming, but it was fuming after that game, so he got the red card.

46:03So you have to lead the team against Roma. And does it feel like the whole world is watching you at that point, that things have happened so fast that it's difficult for you to assimilate? Is that what was happening in that first experience? Honestly, I have to say that when I'm under pressure, I can isolate myself and just focus on what I have to do. So, of course, if you think about it now, that I was exposed to that kind of pressure, because for the team it was not a good moment. We were doing well in the Champions League, but in the league was a difficult moment for the team. It was a difficult game away against Roma.

46:46And I was exposed. Then the press conference after that was not easy. It was my first press conference after the game. It would treat you well? No. But at the... No. You didn't lose the part, did you? No, I didn't know. But I think I am able to be focused and perform well under pressure. So when I was there, it was not a big deal. In what way are you most different as a coach then to your dad? Because first of all, I don't want to compare myself with my father because it's really difficult to achieve what he achieved. Of course, I have to set high standards for my career. But my father is one of the best managers of all time.

47:36So I'm not saying it because he's my dad, but it's true. If you see what he won and the team that he's managed, I think it's out of discussion. So I know that it will be tough to reach his level. and I'm different in the way that... This is another good question. You are making good questions. No, in the way that I have to be clearer with the message that as I am similar as a character, people does not have to understand the kindness. So there is this misunderstanding sometimes in the environment around me and people like me that you are not demanding and I'm really ambitious I'm really demanding but I have to speak up for myself more because I don't have this aura that my father has my father could get the attention of an entire room just sitting on the chair now so I have to and I work more on my communication with people, with my players on a daily basis to make things differently.

48:54And then, of course, about football, we have different ideas. We always had different ideas. That's why I was so challenging with him. And that's why he kept me with him for all this time. Not only because I'm his son, because I'm really challenging. and I think he found in me the most challenging assistant that he's ever found. Me and the other assistant that he has right now in Brazil. As you're hearing, David has thought a lot about football and football is a constant conversation, if you like. We were almost late because we started talking football and we could have just stayed with the coffee for another hour before coming on air.

49:36But I just wonder, I've just heard something from Marcelo Bielsa that I wonder if that fits the way you are or how you think about yourself as a coach. Because he said, just recently, he says, I'm a toxic person. And I'm a very toxic person because I'm obsessed with football. And the reason why I'm obsessed with football is for fear. It is more fear to lose than enthusiasm to win. And all coaches think like that. So you have to think a lot to make sure that you don't lose plenty because otherwise you're not allowed to be in the industry. Yeah, so I touched this point quoting Bill Belichick, great coach of the NFL history.

50:23Patriots. Yeah, that I was reading his book and at some point he says, I accept that I don't figure out my sport totally and I will never will, no? so I will never do figure out this sport but I wake up every morning with the ambition that I will and that's why I have this passion because you you don't know how much you don't know about your sport no and that's what moves me that I have the ambition to find every single detail of this sport but the fact that I accept that I that I don't I'm not able to do it and I will not be able to do it it keeps me quiet as well so that's why i don't consider myself as an obsessed and and does not make me sick this is something that i learned from my father what does your wife and two kids think of all of that if it's obsession if football takes absolutely everything uh you will have to how's how's the bank uh are you in debt with the family or question i think every coach is in debt with his family so i have to uh say thank you to anna loud thank you my love uh to be so patient uh i am enjoying now that i'm not coaching trying to enjoy from one game to another for uh the time that i have with my family and um and is a is a you have to sacrifice something being in this world and what you sacrifice sometimes maybe most of the time is the time with your family you just said that one of the lessons that you learned from your dad was that point around obsession and not letting it completely take over did you learn that lesson because it's advice he gave you or did you learn that lesson because that's something that he was afflicted by i learned the lesson uh as every lesson that i learned from him by the example so my father is able to uh accept that he will not figure out everything about the game and the fact that he accepts it allow him to enjoy life to enjoy uh food even if now he's skinny because he's a legend that my father is not skinny you have to see him now because he's really fit for the World Cup I think he will be the most fit manager of the World Cup he enjoys movies and and I am like this I enjoy to smoke a cigar sometimes to have different like now I like to do Rubik's Cube do you yeah it's great it's great so you you you can have time to it's not great to have different hobbies nightmare no no no can you do it then you do a rubik's cube i i do it uh yeah the beginners the beginners method so white cross in yeah yeah yeah the layer by layer so let's say two minutes and a half no way yeah now now i'm on two minutes and a half but i'm not going to improve that is okay yeah that's fine yeah i can do a ruby's cube in two and a half minutes i know that you need to improve but you need to have time for these things no yeah the world record is six seven seconds isn't it yeah no it's less i think it's on three seconds yeah yeah yeah yeah but no just an example no i like to play chess sometimes then i get tired and i want to do something else and you have room for things in life that you would lost if you are totally obsessed about football i have to ask you about movies now because i was thinking about doing it but now you've mentioned it again and before we started you were asking about what are our favorite films yes and actually when andy was with us he said something about you and telling stories when it came to coaching uh is the is film an influence for you then in some way?

54:35Yes, books, films, nature. Everything could be an inspiration for a football team if you find a way to tell a story. I think it's really inspiring. I think it's a tool that every manager could use and I use it with my players. Of course, I like cinema. I like movie.

54:59And what was the question at the beginning? Well, how you use it. So for example, your favorite film is Raging Bull, you said, right? My favorite film is Mystic River and Raging Bull. Okay. So do you use these things as ways of communicating messages to players? Yeah, because one of my role models is Phil Jackson. Okay, Phil Jackson was forward thinking. So if you read his books, when he was a player in the 70s, in the 80s, it was forward thinking for us right now in the world of football so and he used to give books to his players with histories and it's something that i also did in botafogo once you get to know the player and the character of the player you think about a book that he could read that's maybe he will never read nba player coach is phil jackson yes yeah that one actually just just check yeah yeah legend yeah and it's a good it's a good thing to connect with your players If you give him a book with a story that could help him, for example, if you get to know the character of the players, the background of the player, if he struggles with something, to read a story could be a good help for him.

56:13And I use examples from, for example, in Botafogo, from the whales, how they hunt. Wow. So all these kind of stories you could tell and could be... Orcas? Killer whales? Yeah. Wow. So what was it? How did you use that? So that time was whale washing. So it's the technique that they use to kill the animal that they hunt. Seals? The seals, exactly. So they isolate the seal on a block of ice. Yes. And once it is isolated, then the job is not done. They have to be structured, they have to be organized, and they are going to kill someone that knows that is going to die and will fight for hours and hours and hours to stay on that block of ice.

57:07but they don't do it with individual initiatives. So they do it together and structure and patient and organized. So I showed how they hunt to my players because we were going to play the last game of the league against a team that needed three points to be saved. So if they lose, they are relegated. And we needed that three points. So I say we will play against someone that is almost dead but could be really dangerous if we are not structured if we are not disciplined and if we take initiative individually you know and you this kind of examples you have high press of the killer whale i love it honestly genuinely i've been doing this for about i don't know 30 years no 25 years that might be the most interesting answer to a question oh great i'm being serious that is remarkable when you said nature as an example i was like where is this going but that That is fascinating.

58:05Well, imagine your story, you're talking about books, your story will eventually be in books. You were as a kid playing with Buffon, then Del Piero came home and then you started coaching and eventually crossed paths with Kroos and Modric. And out of all the people that you've had, that you tried to help, the one that perhaps we are more fascinated in recent times is Vinicius. because we see somebody of a lot of quality and who's carrying the weight of the world in his shoulders and he's decided to take up a fight to make sure that discrimination is reduced or abandoned in football. What is it like?

58:48What is he like to work with? You touched the point. Vinicius is a star. He's a football star because of his talent. He's one of the most talented players in the world so he carries this weight and he's alone to carry it because everyone expects him to win the game alone and the expectations again on him are higher than any other players maybe on Limpapé in Real Madrid right now but for a year or two he carried this weight alone And did you speak to him when all that was happening and he was emotionally crying in front of journalists and he gets insulted in certain grounds. How do you deal with all that and him?

59:37Having a manager like my father that is really good in being close to the stars, we didn't have to cope with it a lot. We just focused on what he could improve and he has room for improvement, even if he's one of the best, maybe, personal opinion, the best player in the world. but everyone has room for improvement so what we focus on that we focus on that because we have a kind of manager that is specialist in the make the star not feeling alone from Drogba to Ibrahimovic then Cristiano and then Lewandowski or he always had this ability to to be close with the star because at the end of the day, it's the one that makes you win the Champions League because Vinicius scored twice in the final.

1:00:31There's only one way to finish and that's to ask you about an option because you said maybe for your next head coaching job, Brazil is an option again. What about the UK? You had that experience, you interviewed with Rangers. How high on your list would the UK be as a possible next destination? English football is the best football in Europe right now. has the best leagues not only the Premier League but also the Championship so it's really high on my list of course after the World Cup I would like to start my coaching journey in Europe in Europe and I'm having conversation with some clubs I'm grateful for it but of course if a good project a good opportunity comes up in England let's go for it and we'll have the next interview as a manager of an English club here with you it wouldn't hurt to win the World Cup in the process Davide it's been an absolute pleasure to have you thank you so much for coming in and speaking to us it's been a pleasure and it's been really relaxed so I don't feel I will feel a lot of pressure in the next month so it was good to have a chat about football in this environment and I didn't touch any button, I swear.

1:01:55And if I see you in Manhattan, you won't cross the road. No, no, no, I will. I'll give you a hug. Brilliant. Guillaume, thank you as always. No, grazie mille. Great. That was great fun. Davide Ancelotti, who's been a guest of Guillaume and I on the Euroleagues. By the way, the next episode of the podcast will be the football interview with Aston Villa and England striker Oli Watkins. As always, thank you so much for listening.

1:02:23Hello, I'm Tyler West. And I'm Alfie Watts. And this is The Detour, the official companion podcast to race across the world. This is the post-episode checkpoint where you'll hear the latest chat around each episode from us and our race superfan special guests. Plus, I'll be joined each week by our resident travel expert, Alfie. That's you, man. I'll be revealing my optimal way to travel through each leg, including visits to all of those unmissable detours along the way. And we'll also have some not-seen-anywhere-else exclusive content at the end of every episode. Cannot wait. The detour will land straight after each episode of Race Across the World.

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