Adjustment of accounts between teacher and student

For eight seasons, Carlo Ancelotti and Gennaro Gattuso were thick and thin at Milan. The first, as a coach, and the second, being his extension on the pitch, wove a stupendous partnership that helped the Rossoneri win eleven titles, including two Champions League titles. Carletto appreciated Rino like a brother. His ward considered him some kind of sports father. The departure of the manager from Reggiolo to Chelsea in 2009 put an end to a fruitful alliance but, from a distance, they continued to lavish signs of affection and admiration for over a decade.

However, something broke at the end of 2019. Napoli, in free fall, fired Ancelotti and threw themselves into the arms of Gattuso. Heat gave way to ice. Three years after that relief that Ancelotti felt like a shot because Gattuso had already said ‘yes’ to Aurelio De Laurentiis when the head of the partenopean entity had not yet fired him, the teacher and the student will settle accounts in Arabia Saudi.

Real Madrid and Valencia open the game in the Spanish Super Cup with a first semifinal marked by the duel of their feuding strategists. On one side, the learned Ancelotti is chasing the sixth Super Cup of his career and the second in a row with Real Madrid, whom he already led to the trophy last year in Riyadh. On the other, his apprentice hopes to take advantage of the teachings he received to add the second win in his career on the bench, after lifting the Italian Cup in 2020 at the helm of Naples.

«We have had very beautiful moments, we won two Champions. They are memories forever. Afterwards, the relationship has not always been good. We have had personal problems, but I don’t want to talk about this,” Ancelotti acknowledged at the press conference that he offered on the eve of the morbid reunion. More explicit was Gattuso. “When he trained at Napoli, I was going to start working. At that time, the press was talking about the team being bad and we had a problem. But he knows that I respect him a lot. It’s just a work problem. We have won a lot. We are talking about one of the best coaches in the world and, from a personal and football point of view, I have a lot of respect for him,” he insisted.

Eager to claim

But at stake there is much more than a personal dispute, because Real Madrid and Valencia need to vindicate each other. The whites defend the scepter with which they inaugurated, twelve months ago, a string of successes that culminated in the ‘orejona’ that Marcelo raised at the Stade de France. That Spanish Super Cup breathed morale into a squad that had been going for 18 months without dominating any competition and that used that victory as a fuze in their subsequent assault on the League and the Champions League. Now the tournament can serve the Chamartín team to make up for the painful setback against Villarreal that has made them lose their wheel with Barça. “After the defeat the other day we want to win again,” Courtois proclaimed.

In the spotlight is the defensive porosity of Real Madrid, a squad that has only recorded five clean sheets so far this season. Healing this wound is a priority for Ancelotti, annoyed with his footballers for not giving the ‘do’ of the chest in that facet. “The defensive aspect is not one of quality, but of mentality and sacrifice,” said a coach who, in his diplomatic way, read them the primer as he has rarely done in the press room. «The training signs were good, so I was surprised by the game against Villarreal. We have to get things right again,” he urged.

Real Madrid will face the event without Alaba and Tchouaméni, who stayed on the ground due to soleus ailments. Two weight losses to which Mendy’s doubt is added, also absent in the session this Tuesday in the Saudi capital due to an overload in the same muscle. The good news for the whites is the return of Carvajal. Kroos is emerging as an anchor in a midfield to which Valverde will return, which will lead to the entry of Rodrygo in attack.

The pressure is also on Valencia’s side, who have only won one of their last eight league games and have bad memories of their clash with Real Madrid three years ago in Jeddah, when goals from Kroos, Isco and Modric closed them out. to the black and white the passage to the final. Only three players from that stake –Diakhaby, Paulista and Gayà- survive in Gattuso’s current team. The Italian, who is dealing with the losses of Nico and Castillejo, appeals to the overflow of Kluivert and the punch of the incombustible Cavani as the main assets in the pursuit of what would be the second Super Cup for the bat club.