An impressive 2021/22 season ends for Carlo Ancelotti (63) with the next title: he is Europe’s coach of the year – clearly beating out Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp.
Like his goal-scorer Karim Benzema, Ancelotti was considered the favourite to win the award, which is organised by UEFA in cooperation with the European Sports Media (ESM) under the auspices of the. In the end, the Italian also clearly prevailed, as expected, with 526 votes against Klopp (210) and Guardiola (108).
Ancelotti had beaten both of them on the way to his fourth Champions League title (two with Milan, two with Real). Guardiola’s ManCity were beaten by the Royals after two spectacular semi-finals, while Klopp’s Liverpool suffered their next defeat in the final against Real in Paris.
Glasner narrowly misses out on a place on the podium
Like Jorginho (Chelsea FC) among the players, the latter’s coach Thomas Tuchel was also unable to defend his award as “Coach of the Year”. The top six are completed by Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner in fourth place (75 votes), Unai Emery (Villarreal, 74 votes) and European Conference League winner José Mourinho (AS Roma, 51).
All coaches of the clubs that participated in the 2021/22 group stages of the Champions, Europa and Europa Conference Leagues were eligible to vote, as well as 55 journalists selected by the ESM – one from each UEFA member association.
Ancelotti returned to Real in the summer of 2021 as the successor to his former pupil Zinedine Zidane. He won his first Spanish championship with Real at the first attempt and thus achieved a first: Ancelotti is the first coach to have won the most important national title in all five European top leagues at least once. In addition, there was the Champions League triumph – and recently even the European Supercup (2:0 against Frankfurt), which, however, was not included in the evaluation.
For this award, the coaches in Europe, regardless of their nationality, were evaluated according to their performance during the last season in all competitions – national and international – regardless of whether they were at the club or with the national team. The nomination list of six coaches was compiled in advance by UEFA’s technical study group.
