Carlo Ancelotti by Carlo Ancelotti

Author:Carlo Ancelotti [Ancelotti, Carlo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8478-3558-4
Publisher: Rizzoli
Published: 2010-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Wobbly Benches

There are times when I stand up in front of a full-length mirror and act like a contortionist. I twist my neck and I stare at my ass. My fat butt cheeks aren’t a particularly edifying spectacle, but that’s not really the point. I look at them and I think: “There are so many wounds back there, even if you can’t see them.” One tremor after another, tearing through my skin. An earthquake, with an epicenter right there, sharp and violent, without a shock wave, and over time it’s taught me a lesson: my ass is earthquake-proof. Sat on benches that have never stopped swaying and shaking, that ass has had to withstand every level of the Richter scale. Seismic shifts and jolts of voltage. A wave of irritation and annoyance that just won’t stop: first an itch, then a pinch, and things went downhill from there. Everyone else is seated comfortably, and I’m perched on a volcano. Always have been.

I live with the threat of being fired. After I left Sacchi’s Nazionale—the Italian national team—I became a real coach at A. C. Reggiana, in Serie B: after just three months, they were ready to fire me. There’s always a first time. By the seventh week, we were in last place, three defeats and four draws; no one was doing worse than us. We were a ship of fools, and the captain was me. As if that wasn’t enough, I was disqualified from Federation standing because I didn’t have the proper certificate to coach a team. I found my assistant coach, Giorgio Ciaschini, while leafing through the pages of the Almanacco Illustrate del Calcio—the Illustrated Soccer Almanac. The fitness coach was a retired discus thrower, Cleante Zat. The team boasted the French player Di Costanzo, jocularly known as the poor man’s Maradona. He recalled El Pibe de Oro in the way he took penalties; otherwise, he was definitely a poor man’s player. I was in lovely company. I had even been jeered by my fellow townsfolk; it was more or less like being repudiated by your own family. I blame it all on the Reggiana–Cosenza game. We were winning 1–0; there were only nine men left on the Cosenza team after two sendings off. We kept jogging up to their goalposts in a vaguely festive, Christmasy fashion. We were so generous and good-hearted that we argued over whose turn it was to score; nothing like it had ever happened.

“Please, be my guest.”

“No, my dear fellow, go ahead.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. After all, today is your birthday; you should score.”

Di Costanzo pipes up: “Can I score?”

His teammates, in chorus: “No, you only know how to take penalty kicks.”

Just a few seconds before the end of the game, on the last play, their goalkeeper gave the ball a tremendous kick, and it flew all the way up the pitch into our area. Three players all leapt into the air at the same time: from our team, Gregucci and the

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