Carlo Ancelotti had just become the first manager to win the European Cup five times, and yet you wouldn't have known it from his post-match press conference, deep inside the bowels of Wembley Stadium on Saturday night. The Real Madrid boss had just completed an extraordinary feat – no other gaffer has ever won the trophy four times, let alone five – but it barely seemed to be a topic of conversation, on a night when the headlines were made by Jude Bellingham , Vinicius Junior , Toni Kroos, perhaps even Dani Carvajal ahead of Ancelotti. Contrast that with whenever Pep Guardiola, Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho won the trophy – their personal triumph became the narrative, with praise showered down from all angles.
Had Mourinho won five European Cups, he'd have probably held up five fingers throughout the entire press conference, explaining every reason why it made him better than his bitter rivals. In the same press conference room eight years ago, after winning a mere FA Cup, Louis van Gaal carried the trophy in and pointedly plonked it down in front of him, as a retort to his critics. That just isn't Ancelotti's style, and never has been.
There wasn't a hint of boastfulness as the 64-year-old sat down, twiddled his eyebrows around in trademark fashion, and matter-of-factly discussed a game that further proved his status as a managerial great. The record he'd just set was almost the elephant in the room. First, the Italian was asked about what he'd said at half-time to .
