Carlo Ancelotti ecstatic with “practical and intelligent” performance at Camp Nou

The Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti is ecstatic that he managed to secure a victory as a visiting coach at Camp Nou for the first time in his career. Ancelotti, who made a move from Everton to Real Madrid at the start of this season, saw his team beat Barcelona in an away El Clasico quite comprehensively.

The scoreline might suggest it was only a 2-1 victory in the favour of Real Madrid, but they were in control of the game for most durations and were very, very compact in their defense, which was what pleased Ancelotti the most.

Although it was not the strongest of Barcelona teams over the years, but to dominate an El Clasico at Camp Nou is never easy, regardless of the set of players the home team has.

Real Madrid played exactly the Carlo Ancelotti style of football

Carlo Ancelotti is the kind of coach who believes in setting up the play from the back and that’s what Real Madrid did last evening, being compact in the deep positions and then pressing and finding the pockets of space through the midfield.

The pressing was so good that Carlo Ancelotti himself was surprised by the second goal scored by David Alaba who is actually a central defender. Ancelotti admitted that Alaba is someone who has got the shooting ability despite being a defender, but for him to find enough space and get into the position from where he could shoot was remarkable.

“Normally Alaba isn’t in that kind of area when he plays centre-back. Shooting is one of his qualities and he had space and it came off well,” Ancelotti said while addressing the reporters in post-match press conference.

Ancelotti also made it clear that the injury the goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois sustained during the game was not a major injury, and although he thought about taking him off, the player eventually thought he could get through the game, and he got through without too much of trouble.