Former Real Madrid coach, Carlo Ancelotti, has revealed that the club’s president, Florentino Perez, pressured him to change his team and play Gareth Bale in a central position.
Bale has generally played on the right side of attack, since he joined Madrid from Tottenham in 2013, along with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.
But over time, the Welsh winger and his agent, Jonathan Barnett, began to talk about preferring a more central role in attack.
Ancelotti wrote in his new book, “Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches”: “One morning in March I received a phone call from Madrid’s general director [Jose Angel Sanchez] saying that the president wanted to speak with me at the end of training that day,” Ancelotti wrote. “This was very unusual. When I visited the president, he told me that Bale’s agent had been to his office to speak about Bale’s ‘situation.'”
The key numbers behind Real Madrid’s financial power, including how many Gareth Bales they could buy with their net worth. “In January, Bale’s agent had been saying things and perhaps felt his position was strong because he had already spoken with the president. Now he was telling the president that Bale was unhappy in his position.
“He wanted to play more centrally. Bale had fantastic world-class qualities and all that I was trying to do was help him understand his core strengths so he could fulfil his potential and by the way, that I was more qualified than his agent or the president to help him with that. I told the president that I would speak with Bale myself the next day, which I did after training.
“I told him that I knew that his agent had spoken to the president and asked him why he didn’t come to speak directly with me about what he wanted. He said ‘Yes, OK, no problem.’
“I explained to him what I had said to the president, how it was impossible for me to change the system as it wasn’t just one position, it was the whole team. I was clear with him. I told him that we could try some things in the summer, next year’s preseason, to change his position, but not now.”
The Italian was eventually sacked at the end of the 2014/2015 season and replaced by Rafa Benitez.
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