The happy centenary of Ancelotti

Carlo Ancelotti is becoming an impromptu collector of milestones and records as his career progresses. Reggiolo’s player reached a new centenary against Rayo Vallecano: his first 100 victories with Madrid. A record that in his long career he had only achieved with Milan and previously, in command of the white ship, only six other coaches had arrived: Miguel Muñoz, Del Bosque, Zidane, Mourinho, Beenhakker and Molowny.

Victories that have served to win titles: the Cup against Barcelona, ​​the Décima in Lisbon against Atlético or the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup. All in 2014.

To get to that figure, the Italian coach hardly had to wait for the start of his third season (in two stages). Ancelotti, 62, has needed 135 games to reach a hundred wins, a 74.1% success rate. Almost three out of every four games with the Italian coach on the bench end in Madrid’s victory. And it has only suffered 18 defeats (13.3%). Numbers that convert to Carletto in the second coach with the highest percentage of victories (Pellegrini achieved 75% in his campaign in Chamartín) and also in the second with the lowest percentage of defeats (Mourinho closed his stage with 12.4%).

The coach celebrated the centenary with the fans with a post on his social networks: “An important and special victory … Reaching 100 victories is an honor and a motivation for the search to be better.” A message shared with 17.4 million followers that Ancelotti gathers on his Facebook, Instagram and Twitter profiles. A media impact at the height of the stars that it puts on the grass.

Two thirds (65) of those victories have come in the League, but it is the title that resists him. He has achieved the championship in the other four countries in which he has trained, so the Spanish League is the only one left to complete a historic reporter. He is on the right track: Madrid is second, with one point and one game less than Real Sociedad.

A record-breaking career on the bench

On the way to three decades of experience on the bench (he started as Sacchi’s assistant in the Italian national team), Ancelotti has hardly stopped training since in 1995 he began his solo career to promote Reggiana to Serie A. Then he made the leap to Parma. 2015-2016, after finishing his first stage at Madrid, has been his only sabbatical. Along this path, he has become the first (and only) coach to have managed teams in the five major European leagues (Italy, England, France, Spain and Germany). Against Valencia he reached the 800-game frontier in the First Division and at the end of the season he will only have Wenger, Heynckes and Ferguson ahead in that ranking, although none of them have trained in more than two leagues …

French and Scottish also appear in another ranking in which Ancelotti can climb positions: the one with the most matches as a coach in the Champions League. Carletto He has 170, and will surpass Wenger (178) if he reaches the final of this edition. Its horizon is Ferguson’s 190. The European Cup reserves other sections for him in its history books. He is one of the three coaches who have won it three times (He completed his clover with the Tenth), along with his pupil Zidane and Bob Paisley. With the French, he also joins another select club, that of those who have raised the Orejona as a player and as a coach. That circle is reduced to five other members: Miguel Muñoz, Johan Cruyff, Frank Rijkaard, Giovanni Trapattoni and Pep Guardiola.

A goal scoring machine with the Italian coach

Madrid can be considered as Carlo Ancelotti’s second soccer home after Milan, where it is an emblem. Coached eight seasons to the whole Red-black and gave him, among other titles, two European Cups. A trophy that he had already won on two other occasions during his time as a Milan player and that, in addition to the San Siro showcases, he has also taken to those of the Bernabéu museum, with the conquest of the long-awaited Décima in 2014.

Only in Madrid does he come close to the records he achieved in Milan. They are the two clubs in which he has reached those 100 victories that he now celebrates as a madridista. No other team has spent so much time or directed so many games. And there is a section that surpasses as a Real Madrid player: that of scored goals. The 359 goals in 135 games represent an average of 2.66 goals per game. He only sang more goals during his time at Bayern (2.68), but with an average lower than that of his first stage in Madrid (2.71).

Cristiano’s 112 goals, Benzema’s 60 or Bale’s 40 with Ancelotti on the white bench attest to the offensive vocation of his teams. This campaign has returned to the team a potential forgotten in the previous three seasons and has made Vinicius’s virtues as a scorer emerge..