Liverpool and Carlo Ancelotti share plenty of history, and they will meet again in club football’s biggest game on Saturday night for the #UCL final 🔴⚪ #LFC #RMCF
We’ve explored the shared destiny of the club and the manager 👇🧵
metro.co.uk/2022/05/27/rea…
Ancelotti was always supposed to end up living in Liverpool. Once he did, he found that he loved the coastline 🏖️
‘There’s a beautiful beach,' he said. ‘You can walk all the way to Formby on the coastal path. There are the Gormley statues, 100 of them. I really like it.'
Since the final he lost with AC Milan in Istanbul when Liverpool came from 3-0 down to win on penalties, Ancelotti's fate had been to end up in Liverpool 🔴
That night his and the Reds' respective destinies became one, bound by the twisted metaphysics of football.
'It’s always been a club that excites me,' he said years later. 🇮🇹
'The You’ll Never Walk Alone they sing is incredible. Nobody sings an anthem like Liverpool fans. Sometimes I look for it on the internet and put it on for my friends. It’s something really unique, seriously.’
The thrill and beauty of football — and the fact it continues endlessly, constantly — means that so many players and coaches like Ancelotti become locked into shared histories with different places and people around the world 🌍
Ultimately Ancelotti ended up with an L postcode not because he was coaching Liverpool, finally taking the place in the Anfield dugout which seemed to be drawing him slowly in over the years like a magnet, but instead to unexpectedly be managing Everton 🔵
He had come relatively close to the Liverpool job previously, in 2015, when Jurgen Klopp decided to end his sabbatical early in order to replace the sacked Brendan Rodgers. Had Klopp opted to complete the year out he planned on, Ancelotti was second favourite and out of work 🇮🇹
Since Klopp took over at Anfield, he has not struggled against any adversary as much as Ancelotti.
The 62-year-old stifled Liverpool’s searing attack with Napoli, and took Everton’s first win at Anfield in over two decades 👏
Ancelotti is one of the most ubiquitous men in contemporary football, combining a world-class ability to coach elite level footballers with an elegant demeanour, understated sarcasm, and borderline sentient eyebrows for a rare air of both warmth and pristine professionalism 🤨
That so many of the defining moments of Ancelotti's career and Liverpool's modern history have dovetailed is in part pure luck, part down to the consistent sporting excellence of both, and part that sheer spiritual power football has to pull the same protagonists together ⚽
On Saturday night a new entry in the shared history of Liverpool and Ancelotti will be written. Regardless of who takes home the trophy, the glue that binds the two together will only set harder.
You can read the full feature from @_dan_austin here 👇
metro.co.uk/2022/05/27/rea…
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