Free Carlo Ancelotti by Aleesandro Alciato, Carlo Ancelotti Page A

world to possess forty-four legs, in lines of six, with two left over. Sacchi was practically talking to himself, blathering on in English. We couldn’t take it anymore, so we leveled with him: “Coach, your English totally sucks.”
    He was number one, the best and the loudest. Even when he was sleeping. He didn’t dream, he screamed and shouted. While he was sleeping, he emitted terrifying sounds, as if someone were trying to cut his throat. Every so often, there would be a technical comment as well, even while he was fast asleep: “Run diagonaaalllll, diagonaaalllll!!!” or else, “go back, go back, go back, GOOOO BAAAACCCKKKK !” Jesus, the man never stopped. It was the secret of his success, and perhaps the source of great misery—to him and to others.
    Before slipping into his nightly cataleptic trance, around ten thirty, he’d make the circuit of the players’ bedrooms. He shuffledalong in his slippers, we could hear him coming. We switched off the lights, jumped into bed, covered our heads with our blankets, and pretended we were sleeping. Daniele Massaro was the worst, he always did it. We thought—and said—terrible things about Sacchi at first; that is, until he finally obtained the level of play he was looking for. It wasn’t really clear what we would have achieved without his maniacal dedication to his work. Certain techniques weren’t natural; it was just inhuman how hard we practiced. One diagram after another, one play after the next. A relentless schedule of tactical exercises. He always told me: “You like to run, and you do a lot of running. But I want something more: I want you to become a conductor, with the team as your orchestra. You need to study music, tempo. We are performing a symphony, and you need to know every note by heart.” The tempo, the time, was made up of: stop the ball and pass the ball. Stop and pass. Stop and pass. Every so often, just to let off steam, I’d add a little touch of my own: stop without passing, in the sense that Sacchi would stop practice entirely and tell me to start over from the beginning. We practiced for hours, me and him on our own, doing the simplest things. Things out of soccer preschool. Could we try dribbling now and then? No, stop and pass. Stop and pass. In the end, I knew exactly what I needed to do; he’d taught me perfectly. He showed me how to be relaxed and confident. I possessed a series of standard movements; I knew exactly where I needed to go when Tassotti had the ball, or Maldini or Baresi or van Basten. Or an opponent.
    At the age of twenty-eight, I’d become a central midfielder. Sacchi had opened a new world to me. Between pressing and teamplay, I really started to see the fun in the game. It was no longer hard work. As often as not, we got angry when the match came to an end. We’d start yelling at the referee when he whistled the game over; we wanted to go on playing. We were A. C. Milan, “The Invincibles,” we just didn’t know it yet.

CHAPTER 10
Milan under Sacchi, Just Like Bologna Under Maifredi!
     
    I f it’s fair to say that there’s always a new dawn, it’s also true that beyond the rose-tinted sunrise you can usually glimpse a gathering storm. And not only a gathering storm, but a thundering tsunami. And, out of the center of the tsunami, there was always a team chairman, borne aloft by a chattering helicopter. And the clouds parted, and Berlusconi descended from the heavens (he—or, rather, He—will like that detail …).
    In practical terms, though, the painting was actually the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:
we were enjoying ourselves, but results were not forthcoming. That was the worst imaginable outcome for the man who was footing the bills. Himself, no less. He had a hard time landing on the field at Milanello, what with turbulence and air pockets. The weather reports seemed to point toward turmoil andchange, especially after we were eliminated from the UEFA Cup by R. C. D. Espanyol, even though