Ancelotti writes letter to Gattuso on his 40th birthday: 'You deserve to be in charge of AC Milan'
“Forty years deserve a serious letter, not only a phone call. It’s time to reflect because lot of time has already passed although there is still time ahead to obtain new achievements. Now that I see you sitting in the AC Milan bench, I think you are the right person in the right place.”
“AC Milan need your passion, your spirit, your will to sacrifice. These players need your determination to overcome obstacles and your mirth to minimize some tensions. They also need your anger to wake up somebody who is sleeping because in a group there is always somebody sleeping.”
“You were my warrior on the pitch and I’ve never see you give up, you’ve never left the pitch with a clean shirt and that’s what I’ve always admired of you: I can say your feet are not properly the best ones out there but your determination has always lead you to reach the results you wanted.”
“How many times I saw you trying to help a teammate who was struggling. This is what football is about. People make the difference and you did it for our AC Milan. I had been your coach for eight years. Nobody could talk to you before a game, you were too nervous but I knew how to treat you: I always managed to make you smile to lower anxiety.”
“Do you remember that time in Malta in January 2007? Kaladze was kidding you because of your birthday and the other teammates were backing him. I knew everything but I knew the lads should have not go too far. In fact, you ended up running behind him in the restaurant hall of our hotel and I don’t want to know what happened to Kaladze. In Malta I promised you we would have played the Champions League final. We did it and we won it. You were the soul of that AC Milan side and I wish you to be the same for this AC Milan side, you deserve it.”
Translated by Lorenzo Bettoni @lorebetto