With more Galacticos expected to walk through Real Madrid's doors in the next off-season, the Spanish outfit had no other choice but to keep Carlo Ancelotti, writes Kamogelo Motecwane.
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It seems as though Kylian Mbappe will finally complete his long-awaited move to the Santiago Bernabeu at the end of the season. The French attacker has been on Los Merengues' radar since his days at AS Monaco, but now, with his Paris Saint-Germain contract expiring on 30 June, a move to the Spanish capital appears inevitable.
Another big name who is expected to arrive at the home of the record European champions around the same time is Bayern Munich's Alphonso Davies. The Canadian fullback is approaching the final year of his deal in Bavaria, and with it being rumoured that an extension is unlikely, a move to Real is said to be happening at the end of the season if the two clubs are able to agree on a transfer fee.
Davies and, especially, Mbappe are massive personalities being added to what is already an ego-filled dressing room, so it will need a manager who is adept at dealing with superstar changing rooms, and no current manager is better at dealing with such situations than Ancelotti.
The 64-year-old has been in prominent dressing rooms for most of his career, starting from his days with Parma in 1996, where he had the likes of Lillian Thuram, Alessandro Nesta, Fabio Cannavaro and Hernan Crespo at his disposal. This trend has continued throughout his career, having managed Juventus, AC Milan, Chelsea, PSG, Bayern Munich and Napoli, among others.
During his time in all these nations, the Reggiana native has had to deal with Ballon d'Or winners and will have definitely picked up the best practices to deal with players with massive fame.
This was the mistake Florentino Perez made during the first era of the Galacticos in the mid-2000s. For all the individual brilliance that the likes of Luis Figo, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario and Raul possessed, there was no manager who took charge of that team during its prime that had the knowledge to get them playing like a cohesive unit. Granted that Perez could have bought better defensive players, or kept others such as Claude Makelele, but top managers such as Carlos Queiroz, Mariano Garcia Remon and Vanderlei Luxemburgo had never been responsible for squads that good and egos that massive, and it showed as their spells in charge of Real were short-lived.
It looks as though the Spanish mogul has learned from that time in Real's history, however, having decided late last year to extend Ancelotti's contract until 2026, further ensuring that the club has the best man possible to oversee this transitional phase.
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The Spanish giants have done well phasing out the previous generation of winners such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Sergio Ramos and Casemiro, but have perhaps done an even better job in finding their replacements in the form of Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo Goes, Eder Militao and Aurelien Tchouameni. Adding a character as big as Mbappe, with all the dressing-room issue he allegedly had with Neymar, may disturb the chemistry within the team, but a manager like Ancelotti is among the best at navigating such situations.
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