The head coach has also won the Champions League four times, and as of Wednesday, he is the coach with the most European Super Cups.
Ancelotti’s fourth Super Cup
Carlo Ancelotti is now the only coach to have won all five major European Leagues. He has also won the Champions League four times, and as of Wednesday, he is the coach with the most European Super Cups. It is an impressive record and one that appeared impossible when the Italian coach seemed a forgotten figure in the doldrums of Everton on Merseyside. Ancelotti’s fourth Super Cup, which was enough for Real Madrid to equal Barcelona’s five and AC Milan’s five, came in Helsinki after an outstanding display of team management by the Italian coach. A few weeks before the game, he announced that this final was for those who won the Champions League last season and not for the new arrivals. It is a tournament that is a continuation of what we saw last season. And that’s how the coach assessed it.
The game in Helsinki showed a lot
The first changes rewarded the two players with the most influence on last season’s famous comebacks from the bench: Rodrygo Goes and Eduardo Camavinga. Only after Karim Benzema sealed the win for Real Madrid did Ancelotti remember the new players (Aurelien Tchouameni and Antonio Rudiger), and also a player who did not feature much last season but who has helped since returning to the team after recovering from the injury that kept him out for months in Dani Ceballos. The game in Helsinki showed a lot. First, the players who were left out, most notably Alvaro Odriozola. Clearly, he does not have a place in the team and will have to leave.
Then, Ancelotti gave way during the match to all his midfielders. The Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, and Casemiro trident is his base and to overthrow them will take a lot of work. Even more so with the level, they showed against Eintracht Frankfurt. After that, the coach moved the pieces in an area where Tchouameni, Camavinga and Ceballos had a lot of work to do. Neither Eden Hazard nor Marco Asensio played a minute. They will have to work very hard to get themselves to the side.