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The year is 2026 and Carlo Ancelotti is recreating a famous Real Madrid photo. Once more he finds himself on an open-top bus celebrating a landmark victory in sunglasses while smoking a cigar, accompanied by a smiling Rodrygo, Vinicius Junior and Éder Militão. David Alaba is missing and there are confusing new additions, such as Casemiro and Raphinha.
Pan out and we realise we’re nowhere near the Cibeles Fountain in Madrid but are instead on Avenida Atlântica by Copacabana beach. Yellow and green confetti fills the sky and Neymar is showing off a record-extending sixth World Cup to an adoring crowd. He’s finally won them over for delivering the hexa, something expected of him since he rose to prominence as a spiky-haired Santos prodigy at the turn of the 2010s, and they have fallen in love with the Seleção again.
This scenario remains the stuff of fantasy but Ancelotti’s decision to take the Brazil job – a major U-turn that changes the landscape of European club football and the international game – makes it more likely. It has been a long time coming. The Brazilian football federation thought they had appointed Ancelotti in 2023, only for the Italian to extend his contract with Real Madrid.
Brazil briefly experimented with Fernando Diniz, who excited some for aiming to return Brazil to its footballing essence but angered others for losing half of his six games in charge. They then turned to Dorival Júnior, an unpopular choice who was out of his depth. A win against England and a draw with Spain in his first two games proved a false dawn.
His reign will most likely be remembered for Brazil’s defeat by Uruguay on penalties in the Copa América quarter-final in 2024. The manager was left out of a team huddle before the shootout and pathetically raised his hand to speak. A lack of a worthy successor meant Dorival continued but losing 4-1 to Argentina in Buenos Aires – Brazil’s heaviest defeat in a World Cup qualifier – proved the final straw.
Brazil again approached Ancelotti, but he turned them down, seemingly attracted by a move to Saudi Arabia that would earn him three times as much. Real Madrid were still competing in three competitions at the time, so seeing out his contract could not be ruled out either. However, there have been a few seismic shifts in the game in the last month. Barcelona beat Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final and then in La Liga to all-but seal the title. And Florentino Pérez has seemingly secured Xabi Alonso, who said goodbye to Bayer Leverkusen. The result is that Brazil have finally landed their man.
Ancelotti, who will live in a luxury mansion in Rio, begins work officially on 26 May though he has already started to shape his backroom team. There’s a funny anecdote in Ancelotti’s autobiography about Kaká landing at Malpensa Airport in 2003 to complete his transfer from São Paulo to Milan. The walking epitome of cool apparently put his head in his hands upon seeing a nerdy “good boy” in glasses with his hair perfectly combed, who “didn’t look anything like a Brazilian footballer” and “reminded me of a Jehovah’s Witness”.
On the training ground, however, Ancelotti soon learned that “the Jehovah’s Witness was actually someone who spoke directly with God”. After a transformation that would make Clark Kent proud, Kaká put on his new shirt, shrugged off Gennaro Gattuso and got the better of Alessandro Nesta. Ancelotti was impressed. By the end of his time at the club, Kaká had won Serie A, the Champions League and the Ballon d’Or.
More than two decades later, it could be Kaká who meets Ancelotti at the airport as he welcomes an old friend to his homeland. Hiring Kaká as his assistant could be mutually beneficial: Kaká shows Ancelotti the ropes and helps him integrate into the local culture while upgrading his comfortable Spanish to Portuguese, and Ancelotti gives the younger man a taste of elite coaching. Just ask Zinedine Zidane how acting as an understudy to Don Carlo can help your management career.
A few former players would have to eat some humble pie before taking a job with Ancelotti. Cafu, the captain of the last Brazil team to win the World Cup in 2002, was previously critical of the idea of Brazil hiring a foreign coach, though he seems to be softening.
“My opinion doesn’t change,” begins the legendary right-back, who captained Milan under Ancelotti. “I would prefer a Brazilian coach, but I’m not one to root against him. I love my team and I want it to return to its prominent place. What I most want is to see the sixth star on our shirt, whether that’s with a Brazilian coach or with someone from anywhere else in the world, added Cafu as he complimented the “fantastic” appointment of someone who is “professional, extremely competent and prepared”.
Rivaldo has taken a similar stance, saying “at least they opted for one of the best”. He told us he has “always preferred that the team be commanded by a Brazilian technician, on the matter of identity”, and that no foreign manager has won a World Cup, before adding that a foreign manager felt “inevitable in the face of recent results and pressure from the press and fans”. Rivaldo says Ancelotti will “assemble a strong, balanced team, uniting the best of European and Brazilian football – just like Felipão in 2001.”
Ancelotti has some big decisions to make. With Militão, an old favourite of his at Real Madrid, still out injured with a second ACL rupture, a centre-back combination of Murillo and Marquinhos probably picks itself. Finding worthy full-backs to carry on the torch from Dani Alves and Marcelo, and maybe even Alex Sandro and Danilo, has proven more difficult.
Overrun at the Copa América and bulldozed in Argentina, the Brazil midfield needs sorting out and given some muscle, which is where Casemiro will make an interesting return to the team. Having been phased out by Dorival, the old warhorse is catching a second wind at Manchester United under Ruben Amorim. Given his previous success at Real Madrid with Ancelotti, he’s expected to be given another chance for Brazil too.
Vinícius, Rodrygo and Endrick will fill the attacking roles alongside Raphinha. And then there’s the Neymar question. Ancelotti has already checked in with Kaká and Casemiro, and he has apparently touched base with Neymar, who is injured once again. The Santos forward will be 34 next year, so the World Cup in North America will presumably be his last. Ancelotti must decide whether to build his team around a player whose fitness has been unreliable in the last few years or to cast him in a supporting role.
Opinions in Brazil are split when it comes to Neymar. The Globo journalist Ana Thaís Matos says Brazilians should stop pinning their hopes on a player whose best days are over. “Folks, Neymar hasn’t really played football for two years,” she says. “For two years he hasn’t played. We have a new No 10. We need to think about Vinicius Junior, Raphinha, Paquetá – who we don’t even know will play football again. This is the reality for Brazil today. The hypothetical Neymar is wonderful, but he doesn’t exist.”
Matos has also criticised the psychology of the players. “It’s a fragile generation that doesn’t know how to deal with criticism and cares very little about what happens beyond the field. I will only believe that the national team is capable of fighting for a World Cup when I notice a big change in mentality, and unfortunately I don’t notice it.”
Perhaps they need a manager who can tap into their feelings. When managing Neymar at Paris Saint-Germain, Mauricio Pochettino said Brazilian footballers have “something special” inside. “They love to play football because it’s like a dance. They play like they are dancing. Ronaldinho was my teammate when I was a PSG player and now Neymar. They need to feel good, to feel happy to perform in the best way.” This would suggest that, rather than being berated, this group needs an expert man-manager who puts them at ease and brings the best from them. In that case, the CBF has appointed the best possible man for the job.
Rather than going to Rio to put his feet up and enjoy the good life, Ancelotti might have a point to prove. He is ever the gentleman in public, but he can’t feel good about being cast aside by Real Madrid just a year after he led the club to a Champions League, La Liga and Super Cup treble. And this season he had to shoehorn Kylian Mbappé into an attack that wasn’t broken and deal with the huge loss of Toni Kroos.
The naysayers claim his success is built on little tactical acumen and merely “vibes”. At the same time, a partnership between Ancelotti and a country fuelled by vibes could be a match made in heaven. By leading Brazil to a sixth World Cup, he can perhaps lay claim to being the best of all time. His contract runs until the end of the 2026 tournament and can be extended if all parties feel like continuing, which would give him a full cycle leading up to 2030. It should be fun.
This is an article by Tom Sanderson and Josué Seixas.
