Carlo Ancelotti has revealed Real Madrid owner Florentino Perez knew how to entice him to the club, with the possibility of further silverware a key factor.
The Italian will be presenting his book ‘Il mio albero di natale‘ (‘My Christmas Tree’) tomorrow. The title refers to the system Carlo himself created, the innovative ‘Christmas Tree’ formation (4-3-2-1).
“The president, Florentino Pérez, a very hospitable man, made me feel at home and took me to the trophy room. He obviously knew how to win me over: ‘there’s one missing’, but there are nine together, all alongside each other.
“I had never seen them. He looked at me and repeated: ‘beautiful, very beautiful, but there’s one missing'”.
The former AC Milan and PSG boss was happy to recall his past exploits in both Italy and France, firstly recounting the Parisian side’s missed opportunity in the Champions League last season.
“What a game it was against Barcelona in the Champions League! Every time I think about it again I’m more convinced that we deserved to go through and get into the semi-finals against Bayern Munich,” the 54 year-old claimed.
“[In the first leg] our error was being too psychologically dependant”.
Ancelotti was briefly asked about the famous Liverpool comeback in the 2005 Champions League final to AC Milan, much to his displeasure.
“In the second half, the Liverpool side that came out was different, which, at that point, didn’t seem to change the situation much,” the Los Blancos coach explained.
“Hamann came on for Finnan. The English side abandoned a 4-4-2 formation and moved to a 3-5-2. Perhaps we should have dealt with the changes they made better”.
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