On Tuesday evening, Italian Carlo Ancelotti became the first coach to manage seven teams in the UEFA Champions League. The Italian who has previously coached clubs such as Parma, Juventus, AC Milan, Chelsea, PSG and Real Madrid, has already won the competition thrice which puts him alongside legendary Liverpool coach, Bob Paisley.
The Italian first won the title with AC Milan when his side won on penalties against Juventus in 2003 at Old Trafford. He followed that up with a victory against Liverpool in the 2007 Champion’s League final. In the interim, there was the famous Champions League final at Istanbul, where Liverpool came back from three goals down to beat the Italian side on penalties.
Since then, Ancelotti has coached Chelsea, Real Madrid and is now the current coach of Bayern. Bayern kicked off their Champions League campaign on Tuesday against Russian side FC Rostov and routed their opposition 5-0.
Robert Lewandowski was at the centre of the action as he opened the scoring before Muller doubled the lead in the first half stoppage time.
Asked about the team’s chances of winning the Champions League, Ancelotti was pretty calm and said, “For sure our team will be competitive this season and for the moment everything is good, but the first objective is to win the group, and then we will see the draw."
Ancelotti who took over from Pep Guardiola in the summer, began his coaching career with Reggiana, before taking over at Parma. As a player, he began his career at Parma, where he made a total of 55 appearances scoring 13 times in the process. In the summer of 1979, he moved to Roma and played for them for 8 seasons.
The Italian is often lauded for the way he made AC Milan a force in the continent in the early and mid-2000’s. He combined the traditional defensive tactics with creative players to create a great team.
Under his tutelage, Milan attracted the likes of Kaka, Crespo and Shevchenko, who were instrumental in leading the Milan team to the Scudetto in 2004.
With Bayern, the Italian will hope to write a new chapter by winning the Champions League and in the process would become the first coach to win the European trophy with three different teams.
For the time being, though, Munich will celebrate the traditional beer festival that commences during late September and October known as Oktoberfest.
