You may have heard that Carlo Ancelotti will be the next manager of Brazil. You may have heard that if you have been listening to the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation, anyway; if you have been listening to Carlo Ancelotti or Real Madrid, on the other hand, chances are you haven’t heard a thing. And that may be the most telling portrait of the way the pursuit of him has played out: no long-awaited announcement of his arrival. No arrival, either.
On 5 July, the CBF president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, named the Italian as the Brazil coach from 2024. Since then there has been silence. Ancelotti has said nothing, Madrid have said nothing and the CBF has said nothing, not officially. Even Rodrigues hadn’t said much at the time: a single word slipped in like an afterthought or an accident that was entirely deliberate, confirming an open secret and clarifying the one remaining doubt: a date.
