Winner in 2022 of the Champions League, the League and the Spanish and European Super Cups with Real Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti was chosen this Thursday as the ‘UEFA Coach of the Year’ at the gala held in Istanbul on the occasion of the draw for the first phase of the 2022-23 Champions League, by beating Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, the Manchester City and Liverpool coaches, respectively, in the final vote.
“The Italian returned to the club last summer and won La Liga before becoming the first manager to win the European Cup/Champions League for the fourth time, after leading Madrid to glory in the 2022 final in Paris.” UEFA highlighted the season of the Madrid coach, the leader of a team that impressed everyone, capable of getting up when everything seemed lost in the ‘Champions’, and who received the trophy from Aleksandr Ceferin, president of UEFA, in Istanbul.
“Thank you for this award. Thanks to Arrigo Sacchi, who was a great teacher for me. I have to thank my players, my club, my coaching staff. I also thank our fans for those great and several nights at the Santiago Bernabéu. And to my president, who has given me the opportunity to return to Real Madrid. To all my family (whom he mentioned one by one), too, who gives me space to do my job”, expressed the Italian coach.
“There is no magic formula to win. But I have a lot of passion for the sport. Secondly, the quality of the players you have to train. It was a special season, because we had a very good squad, a good mix between veterans and young players. And that connection was very positive in the locker room. There was a lot of team chemistry, especially with the fans.”
Ancelotti claimed the award ahead of Guardiola, who “has won four Premier League titles in his last five seasons in charge of City, and his team seemed destined for a second successive Champions League final until a dramatic turn in Madrid”; and Jurgen Klopp, who “made his team dream of the ‘quadruple’ until the final stretch of the season, in which Liverpool ended up winning the FA Cup and the League Cup in England and was runner-up in the Premier League and the Champions League”, according to UEFA.
In the vote “based on his performances throughout the season in all competitions, both national and international, both at club and national team level”, Unai Emery was fifth, with 74 points, behind Oliver Glasner , the coach of Eintracht Frankfurt and fourth with 75, and ahead of José Mourinho, champion of the Conference League with Roma and with 51 points.
After the selection of the “UEFA technical study group” from “an initial list of six coaches”, the members of the jury (composed of the clubs that participated in the group stage of the Champions League, Europa League and the Conference League 2021-22 and a group of journalists selected by the European Sports Media) chose their three best coaches. The first received five points, the second three and the third one. Coaches could not vote for themselves, UEFA explained about the process.
Ancelotti takes over from Thomas Tuchel, the winner in 2020-21, after winning the Champions League one year before with Chelsea. A year earlier, the winner was Hans-Dieter Flick, now Germany coach and then at Bayern Munich, with whom he became European champion.
