Can Brazil’s first foreign coach Carlo Ancelotti bring back glory days?

A pantomime meme, a bunch of football fans, and an old student awaited Carlo Ancelotti, when he landed in Rio de Janeiro’s Galeao airport last year, in a private jet arranged by Brazil’s football federation. The fans, in the wee hours flashing a poster, “Don Carlo, you are the man!, made him emotional. “I was moved,” he told O Globo in an interview later. The student was the Milan and Real Madrid playmaker, Kaka, with whom he shares a deep bond, nourished by spirituality and football.

In the car to the hotel, a security personnel showed him the meme, of him sulking near the touchline, a clip from a game during his Milan days, with the lines from Radiohead’s song No Surprises bellowing in the background: “A job that slowly kills you…” In the six months or so, he saw hundreds of memes and reels with him as the central character. Some were happy ones, like him puffing a giant cigar with Rodrygo, Vinícius Júnior, Éder Militão (who were all part of the original picture shot after Real Madrid nailed the treble in 2024) with a photoshopped image of Barcelona striker Raphinha and Neymar beside them.

The Brazil’s football federation projected his acquisition as a coup, even though the dispensation was in a mess and faced suspension threat from FIFA. Some retired stalwarts called him “Carlo, the Redeemer!” Some criticised the federation for overlooking the local coaching spread, including his Milan favourite Cafu —Ancelotti is Brazil’s first foreign coach since 1925. “He is an outstanding coach. But the coach of Brazil has to be someone who understands the culture and values, someone who talks our language,” he critiqued his former boss.

In the next six months, he was talking in Portuguese. When a group of federation employees tried to communicate with him in bits-and-pieces Italian and Spanish, he told them: “I should be the one who is speaking in Portuguese!” He hired a Portuguese teacher and attended five classes a week. Even on a Sunday after he unfailingly attended the mass. He climbed the 2000-feet Corcovado, the granite mount, to reach the feet of Christ, the Redeemer. He met the local rector for a special blessing, who gave him a rosary. “I am a Catholic, like 99 per cent of people from Italy, and I think my faith has helped keep me strong,” he once told London Standard. “Sometimes religion helps you. I don’t have time to go to church but I pray every day.” But he filed a caveat. He loves Brazilian wine and food, which he restricts to once a day because he fears putting on weight.

The pack of doubters turned into a herd of believers. A local television even carried out a survey, where it claimed that 43 percent of Brazilians liked, and only 20 disliked him.

Carlo Ancelotti waits for the start of a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Sevilla and Real Madrid at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium in Seville, Spain, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)

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The greatest team in the world gets the greatest manager of the world. This was the popular public rhetoric when he took over a team in shambles, drifting towards mediocrity after a forgettable COPA campaign and an unflattering World Cup qualifying campaign, firing managers wantonly. Brazil’s federation has been wooing him since 2023, when he was managing Real Madrid, but it was not until May 2025 that they eventually landed him to “reinstate where Brazil once were,” according president Ednaldo Rodrigues. Ancelotti was measured in his words. He called Brazil “the strongest national team,” yet emphasised that “we don’t have a Pele, or Romario or Ronaldo, but we have a shared responsibility.” He knew the challenges involved, not least that he was coaching a national team for the first time in his three decades of managing Europe’s elite clubs.

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His job, he reiterated, is to “get the best out of what we have.” It’s a platitude, but contains the soul of his managing style, and what he has been doing since he transitioned from a high-class defensive midfielder with AC Milan’s dream team to a cuddly grandfatherly coach who forges an intense personal relationship with players. He harnesses the players’ ego to incredible performances, pampers some, rebukes some others, insists on rules to some, relaxes for others. He has managed the best of four different decades, and all the legendary names he had coached, from Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo, to Gareth Bale and Vinicius Junior swear that he is the best to have coached them. Paolo Malidi once called him an unparalleled comedian.

“Maybe it’s my attitude, the way I behave towards the players, the respect I show them as people. I place great value on building those personal relationships,” he once told The Guardian.

He is undogmatic, and bends tactics to suit his men. With Brazil, who has only played 10 games under him, winning six, he has shifted from 4-3-3 and 4-2-4. The front-four formation, he considers, “is the best model with the players we have.”

The bold approach was conceived to hide Brazil’s unusual full-back weakness and an imbalanced midfield equation that required reliance on ageing hands (rather legs) Casemiro and Fabinho. The forward-line is spoilt for choice, even without the injured Rodrygo and Estevao, or even if the recalled Neymar doesn’t regain optimal fitness. The midfield has experience and bark, the defence is manned by the exemplary pair Gabriel and Marquinhos. He has often deployed a double midfield pivot (Casemiro and Bruno Guimaraes) to bolster the defence, covering up for their relatively lightweight first-choice fullbacks. Wesley, the right-back, appears for Chinese league club Shenzhen Peng City; Douglas Santos logs his shift for Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia. Danilo and Alex Sandro, both back in the Brazilian league, are in their mid 30s.

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Carlo Ancelotti reacts during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Real Madrid and Celta Vigo at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Spain, Sunday, May 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)

The talisman is undoubtedly Vinicius Junior, whose best spell in Madrid came under Ancelotti. With the Selecao, he has positioned him centrally, in a free role, where he can use his supreme creativity and finishing skills. Brazil had a raft of creative forwards, but none with the sniper-like goal-scoring precision of Vinicius. The front four might not be exalted as the legendary quartet in 1970 (Rivellino, Jaizhinho, Pele, Tostao), but possess striking individual quality to define games and end Brazil’s longest drought for a World Cup.

But it’s not the glory that inspires Ancelotti. But the vibes, the feeling of being in a World Cup, just the kick of managing the game at the highest level, without worrying about the result. “I am not fixated on winning, but I just want to enjoy the moments life and football give me,” he told L’Equipe. He never shouts, because he once reasoned: “You think players listen when we shout?”

He credits his nature to his humble upbringing in Reggiolo, an agricultural town in the Emilia-Romagna region. “We did not have money, but we were happy; we were a big family, of parents, grandparents, siblings.” It’s the same atmosphere he tries to recreate wherever he has coached. He has won the dressing room and fans. Now, it’s about the only piece of silverware missing in his enormous shelf of trophies. Somewhere, a cigar is waiting to be lit. Like in the good meme.