Inside Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid exit: From champions of Europe to keeping ‘suitcases at the door’

Carlo Ancelotti is leaving Real Madrid as the most successful manager in the club’s history, 12 months after winning the Champions League with them for a third time.

The 2024-25 season has been a tough one for Madrid and an exhausting one for Ancelotti. It was confirmed on Monday that he would be leaving to join Brazil, a day after the team lost their fourth Clasico of the season for only the second time in their history. They will end the season without having won any of La Liga, the Champions League or the Copa del Rey and there is a weary acceptance behind the scenes that this was the “end of a cycle” for Madrid.

The future of Ancelotti, who had a contract until 2026, has been speculated about since September and The Athletic reported in March that Madrid had been talking to representatives of Xabi Alonso, the Bayer Leverkusen coach and former Madrid player, about him succeeding the Italian.

In recent months, the Brazil football federation (CBF) made their own move for Ancelotti and he has agreed a deal to be in charge for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Athletic revealed that he will start with Brazil on May 26.

Club sources at Madrid are confident that Alonso will join to lead the team at the revamped Club World Cup, which starts on June 14. Madrid’s first match is against Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal in Miami on June 18.

To explain Ancelotti’s exit, The Athletic spoke to multiple people familiar with his time in charge and the manner of his departure, who were speaking anonymously to protect relationships. Real Madrid and Ancelotti did not wish to comment on any of the details reported. 

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Madrid’s 2023-24 season was outstanding.  

They lost twice all season as they were crowned champions of La Liga and Europe. The league was wrapped up on May 4 and Ancelotti’s side kept 21 clean sheets over 38 games, scoring 87 times and finishing 10 points clear of Barcelona. 

Then they beat Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final at Wembley. The celebrations of that win were emphatic, as the people of Madrid filled the streets to worship the cigar-smoking Ancelotti and his players during their open-top bus parade.

Yet the origins of many of their problems this season can be traced back to last summer. 

Toni Kroos had announced in May he would retire after a home European Championship with Germany. The club knew that Nacho (one of the captains) would also be leaving and he joined Saudi Pro League club Al Qadsiah after 23 years at Madrid. They did not expect Joselu — scorer of 17 goals that season — to do the same but he signed for the Qatari club Al-Gharafa SC. 

The departure of those three players has been keenly felt. Kroos has not been replaced in midfield and the club have experienced major issues in defence following injuries to key players. Nacho, who can play centre-back and full-back, would have been handy to have around. 

Joselu was replaced — in a way. On June 3, after pursuing him for years, the club announced the signing of Kylian Mbappe as a free agent after his contract expired with Paris Saint-Germain. The club also welcomed Endrick, the teenage Brazil forward who had agreed to join in December 2022. 

Even before Mbappe arrived, though, there were concerns about the impact on the balance of the team. It was clear to Madrid staff that Mbappe at PSG did not press with the intensity they would want from a forward. Some on the coaching team expected Madrid to concede 15 more goals over the course of the season with Mbappe, which they hoped would be outweighed by the positive impact he had when it came to their collective goalscoring. 

With three games left to play in La Liga, Madrid have conceded 11 more goals (37) than in the league last season. They have scored 15 fewer goals (87 last season, 72 this season).

Then, just as Mbappe was landing in Spain, the club were dealt a blow when his compatriot Leny Yoro, the highly-rated teenage centre-back from Lille who had been expected to join Madrid, chose to join Manchester United in a deal worth £52million ($65m; €62m), potentially rising to £59m. 

Madrid held talks with Yoro’s representative, Jorge Mendes, and a willingness to join them was made clear. But Madrid’s offer was less than half that tabled by United and Madrid missed out on a player they had extensively scouted; an 18-year-old considered in the industry as “a generational talent”. 

There were weeks remaining in the transfer window but, despite Ancelotti’s requests to strengthen the defence, Madrid did not make any serious moves. One member of Madrid’s coaching staff lamented that “the club wants a young (centre-back), at Real Madrid’s level, but without spending”.

It wasn’t just that Madrid were lacking in numbers at centre-back, there was a lack of complementary profiles in the squad. For example, only Antonio Rudiger plays naturally as a left-sided centre-back, and even he prefers to play on the right of a partnership. 

It was understood at that point that the board would review the situation before the January transfer window, though Ancelotti and his staff were wary this would really happen. 

On July 14, Spain won the European Championship and the Copa America finished in Miami, with Argentina beating Colombia in the final after extra time. Madrid had 18 players featuring across both competitions, many of them going deep with their teams.

Two weeks later, Ancelotti and his squad flew to the United States for their 10-day pre-season tour, during which they lost to Milan and Barcelona before beating Chelsea 2-1 on August 6. 

They returned to Europe and on August 14 lifted the European Super Cup, winning 2-0 against Atalanta in Warsaw thanks to goals from Federico Valverde and Mbappe. Their league campaign began four days later with a trip to Real Mallorca. 

After a tiring and emotionally-charged 2023-24 season, there had been little time for the Madrid players to rest. Pre-season had been short, the players lacked physical preparation and there had been less time for tactical work too. 

They drew 1-1 with Mallorca and Las Palmas in their opening three games of La Liga. A dressing-room source said it “will be good for us to get them fired up” because they felt the players were not in the right frame of mind.

Towards the end of the summer, Ancelotti failed in an unexpected attempt to add Andy Mangan, an assistant coach from English third-tier side Stockport County, to his staff. The Englishman, who had been chosen due to his close relationship with Ancelotti’s son Davide, failed to gain a work permit.

Ancelotti felt that Mangan, who had focused on developing Stockport’s attackers, would have freshened up the Madrid coaching set-up. Some members of staff around the first team thought that senior figures at Madrid were happy the move fell through.  

Various sources at the training ground have spoken about a need for more specialised coaches, particularly those who can do individual work with players — especially the younger ones. They feel this is holding back some of the younger players, such as Aurelien Tchouameni, Eduardo Camavinga and Arda Guler.

There have also been complaints from those within the club and the dressing room about a lack of tactical work in training sessions, and they believe this has shown in matches. 

One of the criticisms directed at Ancelotti this season — by people inside the club such as the chief scout Juan Calafat, and those watching in the stadiums and at home — is that he has not given Madrid’s younger players more of a chance, particularly Guler and Endrick. 

The data visualisation below shows how stretched Madrid’s squad has been by injury, but still Guler and Endrick have featured for a small proportion of minutes.

In September, the first reports emerged in Spanish media about Alonso replacing Ancelotti, suggesting the Italian would be heading to Saudi Arabia. Ancelotti’s entourage told The Athletic that the reports about the Saudi move were incorrect.

But the idea of leading a national team at a World Cup has long appealed. Ancelotti had already told some of his staff that he was open to international coaching, even though at the time he was saying in press conferences that he wanted to retire at Madrid. 

Then came the first Clasico in October. Without their captain and right-back Dani Carvajal, who tore his anterior cruciate ligament against Villarreal three weeks earlier, Madrid’s defence were ripped apart by Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski. All four Barcelona goals in the 4-0 win for Hansi Flick’s side were scored by those players (with Lewandowski netting twice). In Mbappe’s first Clasico, he was flagged offside eight times — the most in any game of his career — and he missed some big chances. 

“You learn a lot of things from a defeat, self-criticism is fundamental and we have to do it, but we mustn’t throw everything away,” said Ancelotti.

Following Carvajal’s knee injury, there was an agreement between Ancelotti, Madrid’s CEO Jose Angel Sanchez, chief scout Calafat and director of football Santiago Solari that the club would sign a right-back and a centre-back in the next two transfer windows (January 2025 and summer 2025). 

Questions, though, began to grow around Ancelotti’s future. After the humbling in the Clasico and a disappointing Champions League defeat to Milan, there were reports in Spain that Solari was being lined up to take caretaker charge of the first team.

One person close to Ancelotti said at the time: “You lose two games and you’re out on the street after 10 titles in three years (despite) still having options to win everything.”

The idea of taking over from Ancelotti did not appeal to Solari, who had managed the team for four months during the 2018-19 season. The Argentinian has gained power in his role as director of football and does not actively want to coach the first team, though he would do so if asked because of his loyalty to Madrid.

Ancelotti and his staff were wary of Solari when they returned to the club in 2021, and they did not want him close to the dressing room because of his close relationship with the president Florentino Perez. 

But the pair have since connected and managed to maintain a good relationship throughout this season. Solari has been a supportive figure to Ancelotti in meetings and on key issues such as the huge number of injuries in the squad. 

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Madrid’s injury problems continued to mount. First-choice centre-back Eder Militao tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) for the second time in two seasons and Lucas Vazquez and Rodrygo suffered injuries that ruled them out for a month in mid-November. By that point, 17 different Madrid players had suffered injuries in 2024-25 — some more than once. 

The only four Madrid players to have not missed games through injury this season are Luka Modric, Raul Asencio, Guler and Endrick.

In 2015, one of the reasons that Madrid sacked Ancelotti was the large number of injuries suffered by the first-team squad. This season, there have been far more but there has been little scrutiny from Perez and the board when it comes to the role and practices of the physical trainer Antonio Pintus. One source at the training ground said: “Florentino really believes that Pintus is the secret or key to winning the Champions League.”

The Athletic reported in November that there were frictions within the dressing room about the vast number of injuries and internal divisions behind the scenes. 

And there are those at the club who believe the squad would benefit from a permanent and independent fitness department, run by someone other than Pintus, who leads Madrid’s physical team.  

Despite Militao’s injury ruling him out for the rest of the season and leaving Madrid without another senior centre-back, Ancelotti and those close to him began to suspect that numerous leaks from the club to Spanish media about “the importance of trusting players from the academy” meant the club would not sign a defender in January.

By the end of November, and after back-to-back defeats in the Champions League to Milan and Liverpool, the general consensus at the training ground was that no new players would arrive. In mid-December, when a source was asked about the possibility of Madrid signing a centre-back the following month, their answer was blunt and to the point: a series of crying with laughter emojis. 

There was little hope around the club that they might be able to expedite the deal to bring Trent Alexander-Arnold to Madrid. The Liverpool right-back is expected to join when his contract expires in the summer, with Madrid working to have him available for the Club World Cup.

Winning the Intercontinental Cup in Lusail, Qatar, in December — where they beat the Mexican side Pachuca 3-0 — papered over the cracks in Madrid’s season. 

In January, with no incomings on the horizon, one member of Ancelotti’s coaching staff told The Athletic that “without a right-back, winning the Champions League is impossible”. The champions played Red Bull Salzburg without a recognised right-back in their squad, with Carvajal injured and Vazquez suspended. 

The Manchester City right-back Kyle Walker was offered to Madrid on a loan deal but the club did not even respond. And City signed Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis, two young centre-backs Madrid had been tracking, for a combined fee of around €75million from Lens and Palmeiras. 

Elsewhere in Madrid’s ramshackle defence, David Alaba made his return from an ACL injury after 399 days out but it was weeks before he was deemed fit enough to start by Ancelotti. Alaba was sidelined again in early February, days after Rudiger was injured in a 1-0 defeat to Espanyol, which left Madrid to face Atletico Madrid and Manchester City without a senior centre-back. 

Barcelona’s dip in form in November and December had allowed Madrid to gain ground in the title race and, in mid-January, Ancelotti’s side were seven points clear of Barcelona, with Atletico Madrid in the mix too.

But the second Clasico of the season — the Supercopa de Espana final in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on January 12 — seemed to spark Barcelona’s season back to life.

Ancelotti’s side were demolished 5-2, despite going ahead through Mbappe and Barcelona playing more than 30 minutes with 10 men following goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny’s red card.

Barcelona have been unstoppable since and have not lost a domestic game in 2025. They are seven points clear at the top of La Liga with three games left after Sunday’s Clasico win and were crowned Copa del Rey champions following a dramatic 3-2 win after extra time against Madrid in the final in late April.

Ancelotti’s team recognise they have not been able to find a solution to the team’s imbalance, which is partly due to the top-heavy nature of their strongest XI, and partly down to the injuries suffered in key positions. The midfield has sorely missed Kroos and the best midfielder in Madrid’s squad, Valverde, has often had to play at right-back. 

With Barcelona storming ahead in the league, the reports about Alonso became more frequent. Ancelotti has known since at least February that Madrid have been talking to Alonso’s representatives but, for a long time in public and in private, Ancelotti and his entourage insisted he wanted to stay. 

When asked about his future in a press conference in January, Ancelotti said: “I want to be very clear: the departure date of this club is never going to be decided by me in my life. I have the advantage that Florentino will stay for four more years and I have the objective of reaching them with him. We can say goodbye together.”

But in March, he began reconsidering his future for a number of reasons: the lack of signings, the open pursuit of Alonso and the impending departure of his son Davide, who has been a vital part of his coaching staff but plans to leave Madrid in the summer to pursue his own career as a head coach. If he fails to receive a good offer, he will join up with his father again.

Following a humiliation at the hands of Argentina in World Cup qualifying, Brazil were back on the scene, as reported by The Athletic. 

They wanted Ancelotti in charge for the 2026 World Cup, and made him and Jorge Jesus, the coach of Saudi Pro League champions Al Hilal, their top targets. Ancelotti, though, has always been “the dream” appointment for CBF president Ednaldo Rodrigues. Brazil approached Ancelotti twice in the past, in 2022 and 2023, but Madrid had ended that speculation by extending his contract until 2026. 

This time, with Ancelotti’s second spell in Madrid over, things are different.

All of this was happening against the backdrop of Ancelotti’s tax evasion case being heard in the Spanish courts. Accused of failing to pay roughly €1million in taxes associated to his earned image rights during his first spell in Madrid, Ancelotti and his family were testifying at the start of April. 

During the trial, the verdict for which is still pending, the Italian’s defence said that Madrid were responsible for the situation and asked the prosecution and the general state attorney to call the club’s representatives to testify. 

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It felt like the embarrassing Champions League quarter-final defeat by Arsenal, in which Madrid were outclassed over both legs and lost 2-1 at the Bernabeu, was the final straw. 

Intermediaries from the CBF were at the stadium for the second leg on April 16, and they met with Ancelotti at his house the following day to convince him to become their new head coach. Ancelotti agreed a lucrative initial one-year deal until the end of the 2026 World Cup.

That move was briefly thrown into jeopardy last month as the details of Ancelotti’s exit agreement with Madrid had yet to be finalised.

Ancelotti had wanted to join Brazil in July or August but was convinced to make the move sooner, with Brazil wanting him in place for important World Cup qualifiers at the start of June.

Different sources around the training ground have been disappointed with how Ancelotti has handled the situation in recent weeks, and believe there has not been enough focus on important fixtures at the end of the season.

A sign of the uncertainty behind the scenes came before the match against Celta, when a Madrid player asked The Athletic who would coach them next year. When he was told the preferred choice was Alonso, his answer spoke volumes: “Let’s see if Xabi dares to get into this madhouse now…”

Ancelotti and his coaching staff have learned to live knowing that each match could be their last. “We are used to living with our suitcase at the door,” one of them told The Athletic.

Next stop, Brazil. 

(Additional contributor: Mark Carey)

(Top photo: Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates/Getty Images)

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