Amid Champions League chaos, the calm of Carlo Ancelotti may prove Real Madrid’s saviour

A manager embarked on a particularly animated display of pointing. Then he crouched down, seemingly to get the view from three feet. He strayed out of his technical area, at one stage entering the other. He thrust his left arm out, like a man desperate to hail a taxi. He had his head in his hands time and again. He collected a caution for running at the fourth official in semi-comical fashion.

It wasn’t Carlo Ancelotti. How could it be? The Real Madrid manager has survived for 40 years at the summit of the game, often without resorting to anything more demonstrative than an arched eyebrow.

His team were the side trailing, often by one goal, three times by two, but panicking is scarcely part of the Ancelotti brand. Even when instructions were conveyed, it was in a languid manner. As Manchester City launched into attack after attack, his hands spent much of their time in his pockets. Pep Guardiola’s seemed to have a life of their own. One looked a nervous wreck during a frenetic classic of a semi-final, the other a retiree passing time by observing a mildly diverting group of ducks at his local pond.

Part of the criticism of Ancelotti is that he seems passive. The sense sometimes is that things happen to him, rather than him shaping events, but he is the most decorated passive manager in the business. More good things have happened to Ancelotti than to virtually anyone else. He won the European Cup in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, probably all without his heart rate rising above resting.

He yet might win it in the 2020s, too, which looked improbable when City threatened to overrun and overwhelm Real.

Instead, they illustrated their status as the Champions League’s zombie team. The shots rained in on their goal, their