Reggiolo, the forge of Carlo Ancelotti, the quiet man

Ancelotti, along with his father Giuseppe, during the time he was a Milan player.

The last time he barely stopped in town, the schedule no longer allowed it.

But from time to time, his friends say, he returns to visit his parents in the cemetery.

The old home, a small house with a stable for two or three cows, now belongs to another family.

The cattle no longer graze on the land that Giuseppe, his father, rented.

And the single-family house where they moved later has remained empty: her sister, who today lives in Novi de Modena, 17 kilometers away, kept it.

The trace of Carlo Ancelotti (62 years old) is somewhat diffuse in Reggiolo (9,192 inhabitants), a small town in prosperous Emilia-Romagna.

A land on the banks of the River Po, wet and rich, whose social and cultural contrasts gave rise to the great political revolutions of 20th-century Italy, as portrayed by Bernardo Bertolucci in Novecento.

But Reggiolo also serves to decipher the origin of Ancelotti's character.

"A worker of the group" - this is how his friends define him - who will play his fifth Champions League final on Saturday.

“When we went to see him the year he won the Décima, we asked him if he still spoke dialect.

He answered that more or less… But after a while he was already doing it, ”recalls Amos Aldrovandi, one of his friends, downing a glass of Sambuca.

The Toscanini's terrace, overlooking Reggiolo's quiet main square, is where Ancelotti sits for a drink when he returns.

Its owner, Fausto Mazza, a friend of the Real Madrid coach since childhood, shows a photo from the early 1970s in which both pose with the local team.

Ancelotti wore number 10 on his back and a certain Marco Fava, number nine: the best of the team by far, his friends remember.

Parma noticed those two boys playing with the borrowed shoes.

“We thought that they would only keep Fava, but they also wanted Carlo”, remembers Mazza while cutting sausage from the area, also famous for its fabulous Parmesan.

Fava sacrificed his career to be close to the family and went to a more modest club.

Ancelotti did not stop growing.

“His father worked from dawn to dusk and he helped him.

So everything that came after was not experienced as a sacrifice”, insists the restorer.

That was the first big decision for the family, who perhaps would have preferred the kid to play closer.

”His father was crying the day he left.

They were very humble.

So, in addition to moving away from his son, he also lost the only man who lent him a hand with the land and the animals”, recalls Mazza.

Giuseppe, to whom the town now wants to dedicate the football stadium, was always a reference in the coach's life.

“He was a great guy.

A very simple, honest, balanced and hard-working person”, recalls Willer Settis, journalist.

Friends of Ancelotti in Reggiolo, at the Toscanini bar.

DANIEL VERDU

Ancelotti – then an Inter Milan

, according to his colleagues – prospered at the Parma subsidiary while studying at a Salesian boarding school.

He came back to town on weekends when the team played at home.

“Many times he did not come to dance to help his father.

But he did not experience it as a renunciation.

On the contrary”, remembers Aldrovandi.

Until at the age of 18, in the 76-77 season, Cesare Maldini made his debut when the team was still playing in Serie C. His quality, goals and sense of the game made him end up in Nils Liedholm's Roma, which made him a a huge midfielder and gave him his first

in the 81-82 season.

But there was also bad news.

Photograph with dedication of Ancelotti.

Roberto Artioli, who shared a desk and parties with him, also became his driver and inseparable confidant when Ancelotti broke his right knee in October 1981. Carletto decided to return to Reggiolo to recover.

He “he brought the Mercedes that he had bought from Bruno Conti.

But since he couldn't drive, he drove me.

We went every afternoon to the cinema in Modena.

And I think they gave us a ticket for every movie we saw, because it was impossible to park.

That year we also went to the San Remo Festival”, remembers Artoli while showing the photos of the last time they were together at the Bernabéu and CR7 made fun of his belly.

Roma gave way to Arrigo Sacchi's Milan, for whom he was later second in the

.

And the irony is that to start over as a coach, he went back to his land.

La Reggiana, a team from the provincial capital, had dropped to second.

The owner thought of Ancelotti to revive it.

“I didn't even have a coach's card and Giorgio Ciaschini had to lend it to me.

And when he got it, he took it to the next team in gratitude”, recalls Wainer Magnani, a veteran journalist for the

di Reggio Emilia.

Prophet in the Reggiana

The season at the Reggiana could have left Ancelotti's career as a coach badly wounded.

The team managed only four points in seven games.

After a key game in Pescara, where he lost 4-1, the club considered sacking him.

“If they had fired him, today it might not be the same.

It would have started in a very complicated way, ”recalls Magnani.

The owner ended up putting up with him after talking to the players, who on Monday morning offered to take a one-week voluntary retirement.

A sample already of the loyalty that the technician obtains from his staff.

They won the next game, against Venezia, until they achieved promotion to Serie A.

The success with Reggiana made the coach Ancelotti take off, who the following year signed with Parma and took Villiam Vecchi with him, who would be his goalkeeping coach in most of the teams he went through.

At Parma, where they made a young Gianluigi Buffon the starting goalkeeper, at Milan or in the first stage of Real Madrid.

The last time they saw each other was 25 days ago: by video message and in full celebration with Cibeles in the background.

"Yes, exactly... the day the cigar was smoked," he points out with a laugh.

Vecchi was born in Scandiano, 45 kilometers from Reggiolo, and he understands the impact this land had on his great friend.

“We were once an agricultural province.

That is why his character is calm, constant and patient.

Carlo now loves Madrid, he is in love.

But I don't know if it will be his last destination.

The days of a retiree can be very long, even if you are not in the field”.

Whatever happens in Paris, they are waiting for you in Reggiolo to celebrate it.

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