Ancelotti and Gasperini, the made in Italy virtuoso of European football

To think about it seems unbelievable: and yet it is true. And it says a lot about how strange and contradictory, poor but rich, Italian football is. We refer to the upcoming European Super Cup final to be played on 14 August in Warsaw between Real Madrid, fresh winners of the Champions League, and Atalanta, who lifted the Europa League in Dublin. Why is this challenge so incredible? Firstly, because against the emblazoned Real there will be Atalanta, a team certainly on the wave, but without the formidable tradition of the blancos; secondly, because it will be a real derby between two Italian coaches, Ancelotti and Gasperini, no longer very young (65 and 66 years old), who are leaving a memorable mark in the history of European football, and perhaps not only continental.

It is obvious that Carlo Ancelotti, on his fifth Champions League triumph as coach, has a personal history that cannot be compared in quantity and depth to that of Giampiero Gasperini. However, there is no doubt that even the coach from Bergamo, Dublin feat aside, has achieved a prestige and credibility that was almost unthinkable until some time ago.

We remember the public comments received from Klopp and Guardiola ('Playing against Atalanta gives you a toothache...'), or from the 'Guardian' who called Atalanta 'one of the most entertaining teams in the world'. Well-deserved compliments because in addition to the game, as everyone recognises, Gasperini has had the merit of enhancing and launching players (Lookman, Scamacca, De Keteleare and so on) who elsewhere had lost their way or were little considered. Certainly with a club behind him that has become a virtuous model for Italian football, but in any case well centred on the work of Gasp, no longer, as before, considered an unfinished genius unsuited to a metropolitan team.

Incredible but true. Our football, despite all its shortcomings (red budgets, insane recruitment figures, dilapidated stadiums, foreign funds that come and go) still manages to produce these 'miracles' that we only realise when things are done or feats accomplished. We are strange: we go after overpaid coaches like Conte and Allegri and then we let others like Claudio Ranieri, capable of leading Leicester to the Premier League title in 2016, slip through our fingers. And even that feat wasn't enough, as Ranieri then had to specialise, as with Cagliari this year, in teams to save, not being considered worthy of more ambitious benches anyway.

Carlo Ancelotti himself, now justifiably hailed ('Charles V, King of Europe'), had to pass through his own forks, like the grey exile at Everton and the previous ousting from Naples when in December 2019, after a series of negative results, he was sacked by president de Laurentiis for speaking out against the punitive retirement of the Neapolitan players. Now everyone says that Ancelotti is a record-breaking coach because he leads a great battleship like Real Madrid, but it is not enough to have top players to continue excelling. This is confirmed by Paris Saint Germain, a showcase of extraordinary talent, but basically not very successful. The coach from Emilia, well supported by president Florentino Perez with a contract until 2026, has a quality that very few others have: that of knowing how to manage champions with whom you have to manage to get in tune. Knowing how to talk to them, listen to them.