Paul Clement spoke about Ancelotti’s character, an alleged fight with Cristiano Ronaldo and how on the one occasion he saw him “angriest”, he kicked a box that ended up hitting Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the head.
Paul Clement knows Carlo Ancelotti well. The former right-hand man of the Italian boss at Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich spoke about the more personal side of the Real Madrid coach on the eve of the Champions League quarter-finals.
In those quarters, Ancelotti will face Pep Guardiola, whom Clement considers to be at the top of the top flight. “Jurgen Klopp, Pep and Carlo are the best three managers around at the moment,” he told ‘The Sun’.
Clement spoke of Ancelotti’s temperance and calmness in the dressing room and recalled a discussion he had with Cristiano Ronaldo during the Italian’s first spell at Real Madrid: “At Real Madrid, Carlo had an idea of Ronaldo as a striker so he didn’t have to track back. He had a discussion with Cristiano who said he preferred playing off the left”.
“Carlo knew he had to make him comfortable, so brought in two systems for when we were attacking, 4-3-3 with Ronaldo on the left, and then 4-4-2 when defending, with Ronaldo up front,” he added. “You see a lot of that now but it was quite revolutionary back then. He’s brilliant at managing people.”
Ancelotti’s most tense moment in a dressing room happened at PSG. “There’s a line and you don’t cross it. In one game against Evian he was fuming at half-time and kicked a box and it hit Zlatan on the head! That was probably the most angry I’ve seen him. He has an absolute coolness about him. He looks laid-back, it doesn’t mean he’s not getting stressed inside,” he concluded.