Carlo Ancelotti Leads The Italians Bossing Their Way to the World Cup

Defeat by Bosnia in the play-offs left Italy at home for the third World Cup in a row but there will still be a calcio presence at the tournament.

Serie A players will be strutting their stuff in Mexico, Canada and the US. Juventus’ Kenan Yildiz will hope to star for Turkey, while Lautaro Martinez will likely have a key role for champions Argentina, as will Napoli’s Scott McTominay for Scotland.

Moreover, Italy will also have representatives at the tournament in the shape of three coaches from the peninsula, making sure that there’s still some Italian pride present.

Carlo Ancelotti is the most high-profile manager at the World Cup. The serial Champions League winner swapped the club game for the international scene a year ago, becoming the boss of Brazil after leaving Real Madrid for a second time.

Only two managers have won both the Champions League and the World Cup: Marcello Lippi and Vicente del Bosque, and Ancelotti will be hoping to add his name to that very select list. 

Ancelotti grew up on a small farm in Emilia-Romagna and played for Parma before joining Roma and then AC Milan. He won 12 major trophies as a player, twice lifting the European Cup with the Rossoneri. He is the only man to have lifted that trophy five times as a manager – two as Milan boss and three with Real Madrid – while his closest challengers in that race, Bob Paisley, Zinedine Zidane, Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, have three each.

Ancelotti’s managerial career has also taken him to Reggiana, Parma, Juventus, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Napoli and Everton. Brazil is his first national side and the latest entry on a glittering CV.

Yet wherever he ends up, Ancelotti, who has spoken in old interviews about his calm and peaceful childhood, has fond memories close to where it all began.

Trattoria Squeri is an Ancelotti favourite and the restaurant, around 30 minutes outside of Parma, ticked all the boxes when Destination Calcio visited earlier this year.

“First of all as a person, Ancelotti is gold,” said owner Antonio Squeri after Ancelotti posted on Instagram naming the restaurant as one of the best. “He’s very professional. Everyone knows that he eats happily when it’s good food.

“He surprised us with the recommendation. We didn’t expect it but he’s a good fork, as they say here.”

Ancelotti will be hoping to guide the Selecao to a sixth World Cup crown – their first in 24 years – in North America this summer. And history is on Don Carlo’s side, as the last time Brazil went 24 years without winning it they ended their drought at USA 94.

While Ancelotti will be expected to go deep in the competition, Vincenzo Montella won’t be under such pressure. 

Montella has been in charge of Turkey since replacing Stefan Kuntz in late 2023. He led them to the last eight at the 2024 European Championship and has brought them to their first World Cup since 2002, when they lost to Brazil in the semi-finals.

Montella has an excellent crop of talent at his disposal, with Inter’s Hakan Calhanoglu captaining the side and Yildiz among Europe’s most-burgeoning youngsters, not to mention players such as Arda Guler and Merih Demiral.

Born in Pomigliano d’Arco, a municipality north of Mount Vesuvius, Montella has proved a good fit for Turkey’s national team and believes it is down to his upbringing.

“Turkish culture is very close to that of the place where I spent my childhood. I was born and raised near Naples,” he said. 

Despite coming from Campania, Montella is best remembered for his time in the capital with Roma. The former striker spent the better part of a decade playing for the Giallorossi, winning the Scudetto in 2001 under Fabio Capello.

Montella loved the Eternal City so much he would eventually stay there for 15 years, owning a villa on the outskirts near Casal Palocco, an enclave for many Roma players down the years.

Fabio Cannavaro, another Neapolitan and a 2006 World Cup winner, is the third Italian at the competition. He is hoping to lead unfancied Uzbekistan to a respectable finish.

The former Parma, Inter, Juventus and Real Madrid defender has had a nomadic coaching career: from spells in China to Saudi Arabia via Benevento, Dinamo Zagreb and Udinese, Cannavaro has shown he is willing to travel to improve his coaching credentials.

Yet no matter where he goes, his heart will always beat the Neapolitan drum. Cannavaro was a product of Napoli’s youth academy and was famously a ball boy during the golden age of Diego Maradona. He then graduated to the first team before leaving Naples in 1995 amid a financial crisis at the club. 

Raised around Napoli’s stadium in the Fuorigrotta area, Cannavaro was instilled with a hard work ethic from his family. “My parents every day said, ‘Ah, it’s better you go to school, it’s very important for your future’, ” the 2006 Ballon d’Or winner said. “But inside, I said, ‘I think the best way is follow football’.”

“Naples is different to the rest of Italy,” he told FourFourTwo in an old interview. “It has more in common with Rio de Janeiro than Milan. It’s a proud city, a happy, lively, humble city where people live with a smile on their faces. And it’s a city that lives on the street.”

Cannavaro would know that better than most. His method of defending – dogged, tenacious and smart – was honed on the streets of Fuorigrotta, where chaos often loomed and the young Cannavaro played football in any space available.

Despite his success as a player he never forgot his roots, and recently purchased Napoli’s old training facility – Centro Paradiso – in the Soccavo district of the city, with the aim of transforming the abandoned structure into something usable.

“My idea was to have a pitch where people could play sport, football, what I’ve always done,” he told The Guardian last year. “It’s part of Napoli’s history, Maradona’s history, but it’s also my own story: I arrived there when I was 10, I played the youth competitions there, all the steps with Napoli: we played with the Primavera, I went to the first team, we slept there during training camps. It was my home.”

As another World Cup kicks off with no Italy, the country can at least be assured that Ancelotti, Montella and Cannavaro will do their best not just to represent the nations they’re managing, but to prove Italian coaching is still among the best in the world.