Carlo Ancelotti (16 page)

Absolutely the last technical meeting was held at our training grounds just before we left for Old Trafford. All the players were there, in tracksuits, with a companion dressed slightly better than them—a little more elegant and distinguished. It was Silvio Berlusconi. He sat in the middle of the team, he wanted to take part. The fact that he was there made quite an impression on me. I handed out sheets of paper with the formations and the plays; he wanted copies for himself. (Later, I saw them published in a book by Bruno Vespa; the chairman passed them off as his own, but fair enough, because before every game in the finals, he always gave our morale a huge boost.) Berlusconi sat listening to the positions I was assigning to the team. If I know anything about him at all, he was wishing I’d send him out onto the field—as part of the starting lineup, of course. I was worried, I was afraid I’d said something idiotic. At the end of the meeting, I even asked him: “How did I do, Mr. Chairman?”

“Beautifully, Carletto, you were great. You’ll see, we’re going to win.”

And that’s exactly what happened, with a camouflaged Christmas Tree; let’s call it a slightly dirty 4-4-2, with Rui Costa on the right and Seedorf inside, moving actively around the field. We became European champions at the last penalty kick, even though it wasn’t as easy as you might think to find players willing to take that penalty kick. If I think of the lineup of penalty takers, even now I get the chills: the first was Serginho, followed by Seedorf, Kaladze, Nesta, and, fifth, Shevchenko. Inzaghi had vanished; we couldn’t find him, he’d simply dematerialized. I listed him as sixth, but we didn’t need him. Shevchenko was decisive. Luckily, incredible but true, Juventus managed to put together a lineup that was even worse: Trezeguet, Birindelli, Zalayeta, Montero, and Del Piero. A second before Shevchenko kicked, I thought: “Okay, it’s over.” Then it happened. A second later—and this is what I’ll never forget—it was incredible to see the entire Juventus end of the stands motionless. It looked like a poster. I wanted to take it off the wall and carry it home with me, but unfortunately I didn’t have a wall big enough to hang it on. In any case, my dear Milan fans, best wishes from the everlasting instant. What enormous satisfaction.

At four in the morning, I was scarfing down my second bowl of pasta all’amatriciana, prepared for me by Oscar Basini, our team chef. At five in the morning, we were all drunk in the hotel, completely snookered on English beer. We went out and started playing soccer on the hotel golf course, tearing up the green. The hotel staff was distraught: they were tempted to toss us out, but they couldn’t. We were the masters of all Europe, and so, for that one magical night, we were the masters of Manchester as well. We
wanted to be considerate—we’d taken all possible precautions, we had even decided to take off our shoes to keep from ruining the green—but accidents happen. Even barefoot, Gattuso is a bulldozer. He tore up everything, even the hole in the middle of the green. In the meantime, Galliani had taken away the cup. He had locked himself in his hotel room with it. He’d taken the Champions League to bed with him. The poor little thing.

A
nother round, another gift. An incredible, wonderful gift. Completely unexpected. You should never look a gift horse in the mouth, that much is certain. But after you’ve untied the bows and unwrapped it, you can certainly thank heaven. And you can thank the horse. That seems to me the very least you can do. Summer 2003 is when that horse—no, more like that Martian—landed. Scholars of extraterrestrial life, lend me your ears: We are pleased to introduce you to Kaká—an absolute world premiere. A child prodigy at play on the fields of the European champions.

I had certainly heard something about a young man from Brazil, a pretty talented kid, but I didn’t know anything more than that: a certain Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite. From the name, if I had to guess, I would have assumed he was a young preacher,
and, in a way, I was pretty near the mark. He was spreading the gospel of soccer and faith: Listen to his word and you shall discover eternal bliss. The club wasn’t sure whether to invite him to come to Milanello immediately or else leave him to mature in Saõ Paulo for another six months. After thinking it over, we decided to speed up the process, to bring him over as soon as possible to allow him to train with us—and to let me get an idea of just who we were dealing with. As far as I could tell, we were buying something with our eyes closed, based on a lot of pretty promises and a frothy tide of high hopes. That’s all well and good, but what I need is concrete evidence.

Kaká landed at Milan’s Malpensa Airport, and I felt like pulling out tufts of my hair: he was wearing schoolboy glasses, his hair was neatly brushed, he had the scrubbed, rosy-cheeked face of a straight-A student. All he lacked was a book bag and a lunch-box. Oh, Lord, what have we done? He’s not ready to pick a major, much less play professional soccer. Welcome to the international exchange student program; now let’s find out if you even know how to dribble and kick.

Kaká looked nothing like a Brazilian footballer; if anything, he looked like a Jehovah’s Witness in the industrial belt outside Milan. I started asking around, and everyone told me the same thing: “Sure, he has potential. He’s an attacking midfielder, but he’s not superfast. If he plays in an Italian championship game, he could run into trouble when things get tight.” I’m going to keep the names of my sources confidential, to keep from making them look like donkeys.

In the meantime, Moggi began lobbing grenades from Turin, and the shrapnel all spelled out the same general notion: “With that nickname, he’s done for in Italy, it’s like calling him Poopy.” “We don’t need to go caca OR Kaká.” “At Juventus, we’re all constipated.” “We’re the Triad, and we don’t pay good money for stinky Kaká.” It was like a vaudeville act, and I started to have a sneaking sense of doubt: just wait and see, maybe Lucianone is right about this one too. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I had never seen Kaká play, even on video. So I was worried, more than a little. One day, during a press conference, someone asked me about him, about his gifts and skills, about what we expected from him. And they wanted more: human interest, details, anecdotes, and future prospects. It was an in-depth interview on a subject I hadn’t studied in the slightest, about which I knew nothing. It was an exam that I could only hope to flunk. I did my best to muddle through, recycling stories I’d heard from others, and one-size-fits-all generalities: “He has two legs, he wears football boots with studs and heels, he’s a soccer player by vocation and profession …”—that kind of stuff. It was awkward. “He’s a good midfielder, he can play in a more attacking position, too. You might call him slow, he has a nice personality. In short, he reminds me a little of Toninho Cerezo.” I had played with Cerezo, and, from the descriptions I’d heard of Kaká, the comparison might hold up. I just took a stab in the dark, but nobody seemed to have caught on. That’s the way it always is at press conferences: you fake it, you spout blatant nonsense, and everybody nods wisely. Even the people who work with you.

At last, one fine day, Kaká showed up for training. For orientation. The first thing I wanted to do was ask him, “Now, have you told your mother and father you won’t be going to school today?” Milanello security would certainly have had fair cause to ask to see his driver’s license before letting him in. But what happened next is this: still groggy from jet lag, he got onto the field, and I heard a heavenly choir and the sound of trumpets. He was a heavensent genius, truly sent by heaven. So, if I may: thank you, Lord. Thank you.

Once he got the ball between his feet, he was incredible. I stopped talking, because there were no words to express what I was feeling. There were just no words in my vocabulary for what I was seeing. Truly superior stuff.

In his first clash as a member of A. C. Milan, Kaká found himself face-to-face with Rino Gattuso, who gave him a violent shoulder block, massive but not sufficient to make Kaká lose control of the ball. Rino took it with admirable calm, enlightening us with a profound observation about that little encounter: “Aw, go fuck yourself.” In his way, he had just put the team’s seal of approval on his new teammate. That teammate, after holding onto the ball, gave it a tremendous smack, easily thirty yards, to the frustration of Nesta, who completely failed to block it. Now, hold on for a second, this doesn’t make sense. Give me that remote control, I want to watch the replay. I had TiVo, I just didn’t know it yet. My dear Moggi, maybe it’s because I’m a congenital overeater, but I like Kaká. I really like him. A lot. He takes off his glasses, puts on a pair of shorts, and he becomes something I never would have expected: a world-class player.

After every training session, Galliani and I would talk on the phone. I’d tell him everything that was going on, the things that had happened, and he would give me his thoughts and impressions. It was an uninterrupted daily relationship. That day, I called him: “Signore Galliani, I have some news for you.”

“Good news or bad?”

“Good news. Excellent news.”

“Carletto, are you quitting?”

He felt like joking—always a positive sign. “No, I’m staying, and one of the reasons is that we have just acquired a phenomenon.”

He might not be at Zidane’s level, but he was close. He was the second greatest player I’ve ever coached, and certainly the most intelligent. He understands things on the fly, he thinks twice as fast as the others; when he receives the ball, he’s already figured out how the play is going to end. The following training sessions were just like the first. The third, the fourth, the fifth: they were all the same—a spectacle with a happy ending.

I wasn’t the only one who was impressed with Kaká; he’d also made quite an impression on his teammates. All of them. And you can imagine how many magnificent footballers they’d seen passing through. He’d even made a strong impression on Maldini, who, to mention just one name, had played with Marco van Basten. From the swan of Utrecht to the young preacher of Saõ Paulo. Kaká immediately made friends with Gattuso. They became very close, and soon they began kidding around. Oil and water—or, perhaps, devil’s oil and holy water—they made an unlikely but magnificent pair. (Just to make clear what a character he was, Gattuso once ate a live snail at Milanello during a training session.)

Over the last few years, the scenario has pretty much remained the same. Kaká runs toward Gattuso. Gattuso runs toward Kaká. They seem to see one another at a distance, and then move inevitably closer, like a shootout in a Western. They may not have holstered pistols, but they start their duels with mockery. In general, Ricky is the first to speak: “You uncouth southern peasant.” Rino doesn’t say a word, but he chases after him, catches him, and swings a straight-armed slap at the back of his head. Kaká must have been head-slapped a thousand times since he arrived. A normal person would be completely dazed and dizzy, but it is Kaká’s good fortune that he is normal only in terms of manners and appearance. Otherwise, he does things on a regular basis that others frequently have a hard time even thinking.

Pato made quite an impression on me the first time I saw him play, too, but nothing like what happened with Kaká. I got to know Pato over time, one training session after another, but with Ricardo it was a bolt from the blue—a sudden and total conversion. What immediately struck me about Pato was his sheer speed; he’s a hundred-meter sprinter on a soccer field. What struck me about Kaká was, simply, everything. Every single thing. My Lord, what a soccer player You sent down to us here on earth. The day he arrived, he completely changed A. C. Milan, for the quite reasonable fee of eight million dollars. A dream, at a bargain-basement price.

In a fairly static team—Rui Costa and Rivaldo generally played with the ball between their feet—we tampered with the speedometer. Now we were traveling much faster than the machine was designed to go. Kaká was extraordinarily dynamic, although we were bounced out of the 2003–04 Champions League when we
lost a disastrous match at La Coruña, in the Italian championship season we basically had no rivals. It was a stroll in the park. We were the champions of Italy, thanks to a player I’d never heard of. And there is one thing for which Kaká never forgave me: “Coach, I have to ask, had you lost your mind that day? You compared me to Cerezo …” And indeed the two players have absolutely nothing in common, but that day at the press conference, I couldn’t know that yet. All of the strongest soccer teams on earth have always followed Kaká, and rightly so: there are no other players like him on the circuit. The sheikhs want him. So do the
merengues
. So does Chelsea. A universal object of desire, and, as such, he is now expensive—very expensive.

When Kaká joined Milan, he immediately helped us win the Scudetto. Immediately. Galliani celebrated, but he didn’t take the Italian tricolor cup to bed. He’d left his heart in Manchester; he could never forget his night of passion with the European Cup, because the Champions League is more important than anything else. There’s only one class of people who would disagree with me: those who haven’t been able to win it.

T
hat evening, May 25, 2005, there was excitement in the locker room at Atatürk Stadium in Istanbul. It was a joyous half-time. The first half of the Champions League final had just come to an end, and we were beating Liverpool, 3–0: we had played flawless soccer. One goal by Maldini, two by Crespo; here comes the cavalry. Just forty-five more minutes, and we would become the champions of all Europe, the highest peak of that season. Give us back the European Cup, and we’ll take it home with us. Add a place setting for dinner, we have a new girlfriend. The players started urging one another on, aloud: “Come on, we can win this”; “Let’s go boys, this is happening”; “We’re winning, we’re winning, we’re winning.”