Carlo Ancelotti is so comprehensively decorated he must feel like a Christmas tree yet he is characterised as football’s Mr Regular and it seems that’s right. Down to earth, unassuming and, it appears, unable to look away when there’s a few quid on the table. Just like many of us.
I thought for a minute this week that Ancelotti, Real Madrid’s brilliant Italian coach, had done something fabulous. I thought he had made a stand, drawn a line in the sand over which he would refuse to drag his over-worked and manipulated players.
But then it turned out that he hadn’t done that at all. His reasons – articulated in a newspaper interview in his home country – for not wishing Real Madrid to play in next summer’s stupid, unnecessary and depressing World Club Cup in America were nothing to do with player welfare. It wasn’t about too much football or about how sometimes less can mean more.
No it was about none of that sensible and rational stuff. It was about money. Of course it was. Ancelotti thought Real were not being paid enough by Fifa to compete.
‘A single Real Madrid match is worth 20 million Euros and Fifa wants to give us that amount for the whole Cup,’ said Ancelotti.
Carlo Ancelotti was quoted as saying Real Madrid would not play in FIFA’s Club World Cup
Ancelotti had suggested Real Madrid were not being paid enough to play at the tournament
The Italian later took to Instagram to insist he had been misinterpreted and that he does want his side to play in the newly-expanded competition
‘Negative. Like us, other clubs will refuse the invitation.’
No sooner had Ancelotti’s words run like a bush fire through the internet than Real had flown into damage limitation mode quicker than Vinicius Junior tears through the defences of La Liga. They reaffirmed their commitment and intention to take part and then, soon after, so did Ancelotti. His words had, he said on X, been presented in a false context.
This is what sports people always do when they mess up. They don’t say sorry. Or say their mouth had run away from them. No they dump the blame in the lap of the interviewer. But the context here was crystal clear. Ancelotti said his club would not go and the reason for that was all about money.
So they will join the rest in America next season. Whatever the size of the pot, they have no intention of missing out. Just like Manchester City and Chelsea will not miss out, despite the City manager, Pep Guardiola, talking often about too much football and the impact it may have on players. Thirty-two teams in all will haul themselves across the United States chasing coin, ignoring the fact that nobody has ever cared or ever will care about who wins this most vainglorious of Fifa’s competitions.
And the whole thing just goes to show – once again – that football does not care about its players or indeed its public. Not when there is money to be made. So Guardiola and Enzo Maresca will take their teams to America next summer, for sure. Guardiola may well not be the City manager by then. We think the next season may be his last at City. But it’s a trifling point. If he is still there, City are going. If he’s not there, City are going.
And so it goes on. The pumping of endless air into the football calendar, domestically and internationally. Here in Germany, the European Championship will begin in Munich on Friday evening. The Euros are only 66 years old and as recently as 1992 there were only eight teams in the finals. It was the 1996 edition in England that saw the field grow to 16 and that felt about right. It was a manageable tournament that endeavoured to place an emphasis on quality.
Here in Germany there will be 24 teams and in order to accommodate a last-16 stage, only eight will exit after the group stages. Four of the six groups will see the top three go through. Quality? Not so much? Money? Yes, as much as possible.
Man City boss Pep Guardiola has previously spoken out about the workload faced by his players
Yet Man City will be among the teams competing in next year’s expanded tournament
Only eight nations will exit Euros in the group stage after the tournament swelled to 24 teams
There will be many who don’t care. Football, football and more football. What’s not to like? The TV companies will lap it up and so will the sponsors.
So if players return to their clubs on the back of only a couple of weeks rest ahead of next season and then go catapulting into a Club World Cup next summer and then into another season and then into an actual World Cup that itself has been expanded to last an extra week, then why should we worry?
The players union FIFPRO say they care and have had a moan about it. So have the World Leagues Association (no, me neither). On Thursday FIFPRO lodged a legal challenge against the scheduling of the Club World Cup with the Belgium Court of Commence. But this is a tournament that will go ahead. Football will continue chasing money against a background of hot air blown by many like Ancelotti, men who could actually take a stand if only they cared enough.
Good bloke, Ancelotti. Not so dumb as to be unaware of how the world of football works, though.
Hansen was the assist king for Liverpool
As news broke of Alan Hansen’s health issues last weekend I found myself watching once again some of his and indeed his Liverpool team’s finest moments.
There were many of them but soon I was down a rabbit hole. Goals, goals, goals. What struck me immediately was how often Hansen was involved.
He was a central defender for the duration of his 14 fabulous years at Anfield. So when watching clips or montages of some of Liverpool’s greatest days or nights, Hansen shouldn’t really have featured that prominently.
Nobody watches Manchester United films, for example, and is overwhelmed by images of Gary Pallister, Jaap Stam or Nemanja Vidic. They are elsewhere. Out of shot. Keeping the back door shut. Doing their jobs.
Hansen was different, though. He was a footballer in the purest sense of the word. He was an artist, a defender who could see the game quite naturally at close quarters and at long distance. He appreciated space and time and wasted neither. So much of what Liverpool did at one end of the field started with the ball at Hansen’s feet at the other.
Somehow he won only 26 caps for Scotland. Had he been English, he would have been our Beckenbauer. Proof that you don’t always get what you deserve from a football career. Proof also that when we look now at players like John Stones stepping gracefully in to midfield at Manchester City, he is not the first to have redefined what a centre half is and isn’t allowed to do.
Alan Hansen was a footballer in every purest sense of the word with much of Liverpool’s success at one end of the field having started with the ball at his feet
Hansen only won 26 caps for Scotland but had he been English, he would have been our Beckenbauer
Leave Trent out and go safety first!
If this is to be Gareth Southgate’s last tournament as England manager, it feels as though he will not die wondering if he could have broken his nation’s tournament drought.
After the exclusions of Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish and the introduction of some young and inexperienced players, it now sounds as though he will pair Trent Alexander Arnold with Declan Rice at the base of the midfield against Serbia on Sunday.
I acknowledge Southgate’s courage in getting Liverpool’s pass master into his team but I wouldn’t do it. Not yet.
The most important part of an opening tournament game is not losing. A 1-0 win would be lovely.
Gareth Southgate looks set to take the adventurous move of including Trent Alexander-Arnold, pictured, in midfield
Southgate perhaps should look for a safety conscious approach to secure an opening game win
So as we grow used to ‘new Gareth’ here in Germany I am going to channel a bit of ‘old Gareth’ in my selection for Sunday in Gelsenkirchen.
Safety first. Protect that back four. Grow into the competition.
For me it’s: (4-2-3-1) Pickford; Walker, Stones, Guehi, Trippier; Rice, Gallagher; Palmer, Bellingham, Foden; Kane.
Good luck England.
 "BCCI want Test specialists to play domestic cricket; Rohit, Virat, Bumrah to be exceptions")
