Carlo Ancelotti (7 page)

A Roma fan is more versatile than others; he has a distinctive sense of humor. I love to listen to people from Rome when they talk; they come up with unforgettable wisecracks. Once, when I was already playing for A. C. Milan, we played an away game in Rome. At the Stadio Olimpico, construction was underway for the 1990 World Cup, so we went over to the Stadio dei Marmi to warm up. People were allowed in to watch, and comments of all hues and shades were flying. Pietro Paolo Virdis emerged from the locker room with his unmistakable mustache, reminiscent of the little man on the Bialetti espresso pots. One of the Roma fans yells out: “Hey, Moka Express.” I thought that was fantastic. I still can’t see Virdis without smelling the coffee. Another time, just before a Roma–Juventus match, Brio emerged from the tunnel into the stadium. Yes, the famous Sergio Brio, aka Sergione (Big Sergio), but without a German shepherd’s teeth clamped into his butt cheek this time. Instead, he had Rui Barros right next to him. Brio was six foot three, Rui Barros was five foot four. They were a sight to behold. From the crowd, the voice of a modernist poet floated over the field. “Hey, Brio,
ma che te sei portato?
What’d you bring with you? Your lighter?” Followed by ninety-two minutes of laughter and applause.

I didn’t get any applause, though, when I got hurt the second time. It was worse than the first time, and now it was my left knee.
In December 1983, champions of Italy, we were playing against Juventus in Turin. I jumped to head a long ball, Cabrini was behind me, and he put one hand on my shoulder, knocking me slightly off balance. I landed wrong on my left knee.
Clock
. What?
Clock
, again? That’s right,
clock
. Now my knee was talking to me, and the news wasn’t good. Once again, I couldn’t control the lower half of my leg, just like the first time. It was a bad feeling—all over again. Another operation, with surgery by Professor Perugia; more physical therapy, with Silio Musa. After six months, I still couldn’t extend my leg. Professor Perugia had found some adhesions: “I’m sorry about this, but we’re going to have to do another minor procedure. It’s called a ‘manipulation under anaesthesia.’ ” I didn’t like the sound of that; I got a shiver down my spine. “Maybe you should perform a manipulation under anesthesia on your sister, Professor.” Just to make sure that I felt as bad as possible, they gave me an appointment for a clinical visit the day after the final game of the Champions Cup, which we lost in Rome against Liverpool. What that meant, in practical terms, was that they saved the cost of the anesthesia, even though I’d only watched the match from the stands. I hobbled into Villa Bianca, and they all acted happy to see me: “Back again, Carletto? What a pleasure to have you here.” They were sincerely happy, too, but I told them all to go to hell just the same. They put my leg in a cast, fully extended, the foot twisted to one side. It hurt like crazy. In the end, though, I got better.

Around the same time, another player for Roma, Paolo Giovannelli, was injured. He was a friend. Unlike me, he had torn his posterior cruciate ligament. The same thing happened to him: after six months, he still wasn’t better, he still hadn’t regained complete
freedom of movement in that leg. So he heard the doctor utter a phrase I knew all too well: “We’re going to have to do a manipulation under anaesthesia.” At that point, the ears of Professor Perugia’s sister must have started ringing, just as I was beginning to ask myself some questions: “So, if I had to be put in a cast with my leg extended in order to recover complete freedom of extension, what are they going to do to him so he can recover the ability to bend his leg?” Well, it was surprisingly simple. They trussed it up. They put him to sleep, manipulated the leg, wrapped it, and tied it. It looked like a giant salami. I took one look at it and heard my stomach rumble with hunger. My immediate impulse was to eat it, but my sense of friendship held me back. He was howling like a wild animal, so I just made fun of him: “Oh, you’re just a giant baby, there’s no such thing as pain.”

I wasn’t kidding, pain really doesn’t exist. It’s only a theory I have, but it seems to work. Knees are just enemies we have to fight; the war started years ago and continues today. I want to run, my head tells me I have to go, I go, my knee swells up, but I ignore it. It’s the knee that’s suffering, not me or my mind. It bothers the knee for me to run, there are no menisci anymore, so running is a lot harder on it, but I refuse to give up. My knees have made me suffer a lot over the years, now it’s my turn. So I punish them, often running through the woods, uphill and down. Or else I run on a treadmill or on hard surfaces; oh, how it hurts them. And the more they swell up, the harder I run; it serves them right. Every so often I talk to them, I insult them. There are even times when I take offense and refuse to talk to them. Maybe I belong in an insane asylum, but if that’s where I wind up I’m fine with it,
because my knees are going in with me. I can already imagine the newspaper headlines: “Carletto Defeated By Nonexistent Pain.” And the interview with Brio: “Then what was that pain I felt in my butt cheek?”

All kidding aside, it’s an excellent psychological exercise. Challenges and difficulties aren’t obstacles: you can and you must go beyond them. Aside from my second injury, there was Sven-Göran Eriksson, who had, in the meantime—June 1985—replaced Liedholm in the dugout. He was young, Swedish, and he had already won the UEFA Cup with I. F. K. Gothenburg; he had just come to Italy from Portugal, and you couldn’t understand a word he said in Italian, practically the same as now.
“Tre muuuu tre.”
At first, some people thought he was saying “three times three” and they’d answer: “Nine?” Then it dawned on us that he was trying to say “three against three.” We played a lot of practice matches,
tre muuuu tre
, and later
quattro muuuu quattro
.

Eriksson brought a whole new way of working to the team; he prepared meticulously, he was respectful, and he was good-hearted and open to helping the players. Every morning, when he came to work, he would go around and shake hands with all the players, until finally there were some who couldn’t take it anymore, like Pruzzo. Eriksson would extend his hand, Pruzzo would reach out and shake it, saying: “A pleasure to meet you, I’m Roberto.”

I was pretty comfortable, even if, during that period, I began to understand just what it meant to be benched. I had recovered from my injury, but he wouldn’t let me play; he believed in Stefano Desideri and Giuseppe Giannini, both of whom had come out of the youth league. I felt that I had been sidelined, I thought he was
overlooking me or that he had it in for me. That wasn’t the case at all; he put me back on the first team, and the following year he even offered to make me captain, because Agostino Di Bartolomei had moved over to A. C. Milan and Conti didn’t want to take on that level of responsibility. Me—captain of Roma. I represented a team and three-quarters of the city, because, let’s admit it, there really aren’t that many Lazio fans in Rome.

Right before one game, we walked into the locker room in I can’t remember which stadium, and we were suddenly hit with a serious wave of nausea. It was a stink the likes of which none of us had ever encountered before. Ciccio Graziani hurried over to the toilets and, with his usual savoir faire attempted delicately to determine who was behind that stench:
“Ahò, ma che te sei magnato? I ratti der Tevere?”
Roughly translated: “What have you been eating, rats from the Tiber?” A door swung open, and Eriksson emerged, red-faced. “Relax, boys. It’s just the coach who’s crapped his pants.” Like Liedholm, he never lost his temper. He was Liedholm’s natural successor. He really was a great coach. One of the reasons that my relationship with Roma cooled considerably was the team’s decision to get rid of Eriksson in April of 1987. The previous year, we had lost a spectacular championship match for the Scudetto, the famous game against Lecce, even though we had played beautifully.
Undici muuuu undici
—eleven against eleven.

T
hey made me sick of being part of that team. I lost my enthusiasm for the club, my passion for playing there withered and died. All kinds of odd things were going on, but most importantly, A. S. Roma had just bought two players—Lionello Manfredonia and Rudi Völler. They’d overspent, and it was time to sell a player to make up the difference. The only player anyone wanted to buy was me. A martyr to a fallen market.

In 1987, A. C. Milan hired a young coach named Arrigo Sacchi, and for some reason or another he was obsessed with putting me on the team. He wanted me at all costs, even more than he wanted Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten, who had already been bought by other teams. I was ticked off, I wanted the deal to go through right away, but I had to cool my heels; it was ratified on the last day
of the transfer period. I was at the beach in Sardinia; the secretary general of A. S. Roma, Roberto Borgogno, called me: “You’ve been sold. Come back to Rome, I’ll give you an address, and you can go and meet with an executive from A. C. Milan.”

Palazzo al Velabro. That was the address he gave me. It was a residential hotel in the historic center of Rome. I went straight over, walked in, my curiosity aroused. The concierge didn’t say a word; he just handed me the key to the room and gave me a quick wink. Right then and there, I couldn’t guess why. It became clear afterwards. I went upstairs, opened the door, and walked into a vast reception room. On the table was a nice little spread: champagne and finger pastries. I left the alcohol alone, but I ravaged the trayful of pastries, leaving only crumpled paper wrappers. Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, an A. C. Milan executive popped into the room; he looked young and vigorous, but there wasn’t a hair on his head. Not a single, blessed hair; I know, I checked carefully. This was Adriano Galliani, the managing director of the club. Also known as Lo Zio—Uncle Adriano. I thought back to the winking concierge. I put myself in his position, behind the reception desk, and it all made sense. In comes a bald gentleman who asks for champagne and a tray of finger pastries to be delivered to room such-and-such, then he sees me arrive, Carletto, aka Il Bimbo—the Kid, and ask for the keys to that same room. Now I understand the wink: he thought we were lovers.

This was the first time I’d ever met Galliani. We talked about his philosophy, the team, and what he hoped to accomplish: “We have great ambitions.” That was a phrase I’d already heard a thousand times before. “We want to win the Italian championship next year,
and play in the UEFA European championship; we want to win the UEFA Cup in two years, and in the third year we want to win the Intercontinental Cup.” Okay, that’s something I haven’t heard. I took a look at my watch. This guy is talking like he’s drunk, but it’s too early in the day to think he’s guzzled that much hard liquor. Maybe he’s just lost his mind. A short while later, I found myself on the phone with Silvio Berlusconi. For the first time.
“Pronto?
Yes, this is the chairman.”

“Buon giorno.”

“Buon giorno
to you. How are your knees?”

He wasn’t exactly beating around the bush. He came straight to the point, with his first question.

“Mr. Chairman, my knees are fine.”

“Well, we’re counting on you. We want to win the Italian championship next year, in two years we want the Champions’ Cup, and, for the third year, we want the Intercontinental Cup.”

Okay, now it’s official. Everyone’s drunk. What the hell did they put in the water up in Milan? He was funny, though, joke after joke; it was invigorating to talk to him.
“Arrivederci
, then, Mr. Chairman.”

“Arrivederci
, Carletto. Let’s keep our fingers crossed; we don’t want any unpleasant surprises from your physical.”

I crossed my fingers, and touched my balls to ward off evil while I was at it.

No question about it, that physical was going to be a crucial rite of passage. It was me against my knees, my old archenemies. The following day, the A. C. Milan team physician, Monti, flew down to Rome. Actually, the physical examination was performed
by Professor Perugia, the surgeon who had operated on my knees. I have to say that Monti expressed serious misgivings about my knees. Despite his doubts, the team accepted me.

My journey from Trigoria to Milanello was a voyage to a different planet. And when I landed on that planet, I met someone who struck me as insane at first: Arrigo Sacchi. Before long, though, it dawned on me that Sacchi was a genius, not a madman. Truly a great man. Another mentor, another maestro. My first training sessions with him were challenging, to say the least. Usually I spend the time between soccer seasons exercising and training. That summer, instead, since I knew I was being let go, I just lay around and relaxed. I was in terrible shape, and my first warm-up with Arrigo was a terrible experience. His methods were completely innovative. Let’s say that the benchmark for intensity of training had been twenty. Well, at Milanello the level of intensity was a solid hundred. There was just a world of difference, a tremendous and exhausting challenge. At the end of the day, we were all terrified at the thought of climbing the stairs to our bedrooms; we couldn’t face it. Grown men though we were, we broke down sobbing. It was an ordeal, we moved like a squadron of zombies. The short walk from the dining hall to the locker room was a struggle of the will: “We
will
go out for training … we
can’t
go out for training …” In the end, of course, we always went out for training; in fact, the pace only increased. The problem was that the day wasn’t over at seven in the evening, after our second training session. Then it was time for dinner, and after an espresso (and before we were allowed to go to bed), Sacchi held a team assembly. Not a technical meeting, a psychological meeting. There was a psychologist named
Bruno De Michelis and another executive, a man named Zaccuri, who was director of human resources for Fininvest, Berlusconi’s holding company. De Michelis: “Give me a list of fifty objects, and I’ll write them on this blackboard, numbering them from one to fifty.” The first thing that came into everyone’s mind: “Okay, so they’re crazy, not us.” We decided to humor them, and began listing objects: loaf of bread, house, football, bowl of tortellini (guess who came up with that one), goal, stadium, pussy, car, cup of coffee, and so on, until we’d named fifty objects. De Michelis: “Now I’m going to turn the blackboard around, and I’m going to name them all, in order, without looking.” He did it, too: loaf of bread, house, soccer ball, bowl of tortellini, goal, stadium, pussy, car, cup of coffee … He didn’t miss a single one. “Now I’ll repeat all the words in reverse order: cup of coffee, car, pussy, stadium, goal, bowl of tortellini, soccer ball, house, loaf of bread.” Incredible. We thought we were smarter than him, we weren’t about to let him get away with it.