{"id":171019,"date":"2025-09-26T19:14:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T19:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171019\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T19:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T19:14:12","slug":"sacked-over-a-half-time-substitution-carlo-ancelotti-reveals-his-change-that-infuriated-roman-abramovich-and-cost-him-his-job-at-chelsea-after-he-made-direct-rebuke-over-50m-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171019\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacked over a half-time substitution! Carlo Ancelotti reveals his change that infuriated Roman Abramovich – and cost him his job at Chelsea – after he made ‘direct rebuke’ over \u00a350m flop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlo Ancelotti<\/a> has revealed that Roman Abramovich<\/a> brutally threatened to sack him over a substitution he made in a Champions League<\/a> quarter-final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The veteran Italian boss – who is now the manager of the Brazil national team – spent two seasons in west London under the club’s ruthless former Russian owner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His first was a hugely successful one as Ancelotti helped the Blues win both the FA Cup<\/a> and Premier League<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 66-year-old’s second was however less successful and ultimately ended in his dismissal at the end of the season after failing to win a trophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However in his new autobiography, ‘The Dream – Winning the Champions League’, Ancelotti has revealed that his Chelsea<\/a> tenure could have ended a whole lot sooner when he substituted Fernando Torres in a European game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Abramovich had splashed out \u00a350m to bring the forward in from Liverpool<\/a> and was more than displeased to see him sacrificed at half-time in the final eight of the Champions League.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Carlo <\/p>\n

Carlo Ancelotti enjoyed two years as manager of Chelsea between 2009 and 2011<\/p>\n

\"He <\/p>\n

He was working under Roman Abramovich, who ultimately dismissed the Italian after a trophy-less second campaign<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Russian had however threatened to sack Ancelotti months earlier over his decision to sub Fernando Torres in a Champions League quarter-final<\/p>\n

Ancelotti revealed: ‘Success or failure in Europe is how I would be measured by Abramovich, and the Champions League cost me my job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The night before the second leg (against United), Abramovich warned the squad that if they didn’t win there would be changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘He then told me that if we lost, I should not bother coming back in the next day.<\/p>\n

‘Torres was clearly suffering from a lack of confidence and felt the weight of his transfer fee hanging around his neck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘In the dressing room Abramovich made it very clear what this defeat meant. What happened to next was inevitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Torres was his personal decision and substituting him was a direct rebuke to the owner. Momentarily, I had forgotten that ultimately you can’t beat the owner.’<\/p>\n

Ancelotti has worked for former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan, Florentino Perez at Real Madrid and PSG head honcho Nasser Al-Khelaifi.<\/p>\n

But he says none come close to the looming ‘shadow’ of Abramovich and the extreme pressure he felt his job was under during his time in west London.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Jose <\/p>\n

Jose Mourinho (left) led his Inter Milan side to victory over former club Chelsea in a hugely damaging Champions League defeat in March, 2010<\/p>\n

\"Ancelotti <\/p>\n

Ancelotti spoke in depth about working for Abramovich in his new book (above)<\/p>\n

‘I knew my record would get me only so far,’ he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Abramovich made clear he wanted me to win the Champions League with Chelsea and for Chelsea to carve out its identity on the pitch.<\/p>\n

‘But now I was working for a Russian oligarch who I suddenly understood expected everything to go well all the time.<\/p>\n

‘And if it didn’t, he wanted to know why. It was my job to supply the answers.’<\/p>\n

After an unexpected 3-1 defeat by Wigan, Ancelotti started to appreciate just how hands-on and demanding Abramovich could be.<\/p>\n

‘This was when the first hint of a shadow fell across my time at the club,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘Abramovich was at the training ground the morning after demanding answers. What had gone wrong?<\/p>\n

‘I never had this level of surveillance from Berlusconi. He was a demanding owner and sometimes bought players I didn’t need and expected me to fit them into the side or argue about tactics.<\/p>\n

‘But for a lot of the time he was Prime Minister of Italy so there was no micromanagement. He had more important things to think about.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

And Ancelotti also revealed that Abramovich was furious after the man he’d sacked, Jose Mourinho, steered Inter Milan to a 3-1 aggregate win over Ancelotti’s Blues in the Champions League.<\/p>\n

Ancelotti said: ‘The next day Abramovich didn’t talk just to me but to the whole squad.<\/p>\n

‘My problem was that Mourinho’s triumph was not great for my relationship with Abramovich.<\/p>\n

‘I was supposed to be the antidote to Mourinho – calm, measured and able to revive the squad after the drama.<\/p>\n

‘According to Abramovich, Mourinho was supposed to be a spent force.<\/p>\n

\"Ancelotti <\/p>\n

Ancelotti was popular among the Chelsea players during his time at the club\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Ancelotti <\/p>\n

Ancelotti says Abramovich had felt like Mourinho was a spent force when he left the Blues<\/p>\n

‘Allowing him to disrupt the script. I had embarrassed the owner. Success or failure in Europe is how I would be measured by Abramovich – and the Champions League cost me my job.’<\/p>\n

A year after Ancelotti’s departure, Chelsea went on to win the Champions League beating Bayern Munich on penalties in the final.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Abramovich’s tenure came to a grinding halt when he was forced to sell the club to Todd Boehly and Clearlake three years ago.<\/p>\n

Full proceeds from the \u00a32.5bn sale remain frozen in a UK bank account and proceeds were supposed to be used to help victims of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, a Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office spokesperson said: ‘This government is working hard to ensure the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC reach humanitarian causes in Ukraine as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

‘The proceeds are currently frozen in a UK bank account while a new independent foundation is established to manage and distribute the money.<\/p>\n

‘UK officials continue to hold discussions with Mr Abramovich’s representatives, experts and international partners, and we will double down on our efforts to reach a resolution.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlo Ancelotti has revealed that Roman Abramovich brutally threatened to sack him over a substitution he made in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,11308,111585,6257,6187,100,596,2022,111586,588,85],"class_list":["post-171019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brazil","tag-carlo-ancelotti","tag-champions-league","tag-chelsea","tag-dailymail","tag-football","tag-london","tag-roman-abramovich","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}