Carlo Ancelotti sack watch

Not surprising that he is getting positive results, he's a great manager.

Need to read more details on it but it is said that Davide is the main hub behind the tactics now, or that he at least has a big role in that facet of things, and that he along with the equally as young scouting analyst Carlo now uses are pretty progressive and up to date with their methodologies.

This season is definitely shaping up as Carlo's masterpiece. His 4222 that he constructed in late 2014 that only lasted a few games where Bale was injured (and before Modric himself got sidelined for most of the season) and which included the Isco-Kroos-Modric-James quartet had always been my favorite Madrid side of all time, and at the time I thought it was beautifully emblematic and quintessential of Ancelotti's philosophy. Uniting star studded dressing rooms and their talents, and giving power, flexibility, and inventive versatility to the midfielders and the midfield structure to create a system that had plenty of equilibrium. He used to use that word a lot. Equilibrio.



It was precisely because of that that I've always remembered that side fondly, even more so than Mourinho's 11/12 invention or the 16/17 Zidane side, which are the two other most noteworthy sides I've seen since I started watching in 2010. That side was very compact and there was a lot of interchanging movement between Marcelo, Carvajal, Modric, Isco, James, Ronaldo, and Benzema. That was an all time incredible accumulation of talent that had the technique, intelligence, and still youthful enough physicality that could facilitate a wealth of possibilities, and the result was, like I said, a side that was very compact, pressed very well, and that stayed quite together and thus facilitated passing lanes and triangles that were constantly present to produce numerical overloads in attack, when pressing forward, and when tracking back and protecting opposition overloads in defense.

That Isco-Kroos-Modric-James midfield was the key to it all and what Carlo was doing particularly with Kroos and James at the time showed a somewhat subtly vibrant inventiveness that was previously seen with what Carlo did with Pirlo and his own 4321/4312 midfield quartets in Milan with Pirlo, Gattuso, Ambrosini, Seedorf, Costa, and Kaka.  

The legacy and vision of that 4222 that will nostalgically live with me for eternity was that of a sort of mellow, relationist, and pragmatically open vision of "totaalvoetbal."

This year Carlo has shown all that again.

If in Milan Carlo became famous with the positional transformation of Pirlo, back in 2014 it was very palpable that he was doing similar things with Di Maria, James, and Kroos (Kroos' inevitable transformation into a deep lying CM was already seen a bit with Guardiola), and now it has been with Bellingham and Vinicius, and Valverde too, although the latter was an invention started by Zidane.

With his masterclass man management, and tactical flexibility and versatility, Carlo has guided what he himself calls his greatest squad ever (from a human disposition aspect) and molded the squad into whatever they've had to be.

My favorite Madrid performance of this season has probably been the 4-0 thrashing of Girona at home in the league, there's also the thrashing we gave to Villarreal at home, the beating against FC Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup final, and I also liked what I saw against Bayern at home and majority of the aspects seen against Manchester City.

Games where Madrid has played a 433, 4222, 4231, 4222, and 4231 respectively. With different players playing in the midfield and those players being the sword and shield to it all, and Vinicius the fulminating dagger.

It was a 4222 against Bayern at home, and I think it may be a 4231 against Borussia Dortmund.

If Tchouameni is injured, the uber complete midfield of Valverde-Camavinga-Kroos-Bellingham would be the perfect metaphor to encapsulate and honor the legacy of the raised eyebrow.

Seems like you converted to Ancelottism

I "remind" arguing with you 10 years ago after Madrid's 2014 CL win about the extent of Mourinho's influence on that team

From a narrative perspective, I think it's quite interesting how wholly singular the image of Florentino Perez has become in relation to Real Madrid's since the turn of the century. He was newly elected in 2000 and thus HE was the one who stood with Sepp Blatter and Alfredo Di Stefano to accept FIFA's official designation and coronation of Real Madrid as the best football club of the 20th century. It couldn't have been anyone else.

Santiago Bernabéu had been the architect and conductor of the orchestra of legends that began Real Madrid's all consuming myth, and it was befitting that his pound for pound spiritual successor was the one to hoist and continue the tradition.  



Perez's arc, from the almost mythologically grandiose and extravagant "failure" of the Galactico era, through to his stepping down as president, eventual return, and astonishing redemption has a very Steve Jobs at Apple ethos to it, I think.

Mourinho's role in all of that is open to interpretation, arguably a penalty shootout away from being ultimately magnificent, but that is the nature of narratives, and in the narrative of 21st Century Real Madrid I'd say he was more important than his detractors would like to imagine, and less so than his supporters would have you believe. That he is now felt as somewhat of a, at best, "necessary" footnote, particularly relative to what's happened after his departure, speaks well of what the club, of what Perez has achieved since. For the "club" (its institution) to stand tall in the narrative of success over players and managers is the ideal scenario.