Jordan Pickford has warned Liverpool that they will be facing one of football’s 'greatest' managers in the shape of Carlo Ancelotti in the final of the Champions League.
Ancelotti’s Real Madrid side take on Liverpool at the Stade de France in Paris tomorrow night. The 62-year-old has become the first manager to reach five Champions League finals.
Pickford and Ancelotti worked together for 18-months at Goodison Park, as the experienced Italian guided Everton to a top-half finish in his only full season in charge of the club.
READ MORE: Alex Iwobi's significant Everton improvement in numbers as Frank Lampard unlocks potential
READ MORE: Anwar El Ghazi's Everton journey from Rafa Benitez's 'win-win' transfer to forgotten man
The former AC Milan and Chelsea boss left Everton l ast summer to return to Real, where he guided the Spanish giants to the La Liga title this season. And Pickford has revealed why he agrees with his former boss being called 'Don Carlo'.
He said: “He’s done it in all the leagues. When we got him at Everton, it was like: 'Wow, we’ve got a legend of the game here'. He had done it as a player and manager before he came to us and he had a very good staff around him as well.
"He had his son, Davide, and a really good team, and we learned quite a lot with Carlo. We knew what a top manager he was, and when he went to Real Madrid, we knew he’d be capable of winning stuff.
"So, yeah, it was a good 18 months working with him. It was a really good learning curve individually, to learn off a very good manager, one of the greatest.
"We saw how calm he is around situations. You could see when he was at the training ground he had plenty left in him.
"To win the Spanish league and reach the Champions League final shows that. I think it was Rio Ferdinand who said he was 'Don Carlo'. You can see him with a cigar in his mouth! He’s brilliant."
