Ancelotti’s failed transfers at Real Madrid

Carlo Ancelotti has brought several special and very good players to the club during his two spells at Real Madrid, but like everyone else he has not avoided missteps. And you can read about the biggest ones.

Asier Illarramendi

The Spanish defensive midfielder joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2013 from Real Sociedad. However, it must be added that he was not the central figure and the biggest star in the Basque club, yet Florentino Perez did not hesitate to pay 32 million euros for him.

Illarramendi had already been injured twice during the pre-season and was struggling to get up to speed. He was supposed to be a replacement for the ageing Xabi Alonso, compared to whom he had significantly worse technique.

He didn’t get into the attack many times a game and didn’t shine in the defensive phase either. In the quarter-finals of the Champions League in the spring of 2014, Real Madrid arrived at Borussia Dortmund’s stadium with a comfortable three-goal lead, but it was gone by half-time.

Di María did not give a penalty and after mistakes by Pepe and Illarramendi, Dortmund led 2: 0. Ancelotti subsequently pulled the Spaniard off the pitch at half-time and from this game onwards he didn’t trust him much.

The next season he started 41 games, that doesn’t sound bad, but he was only in the starting lineup 15 times. So we can only speculate what was going through the Spaniard’s mind, whether he couldn’t handle the pressure that is always omnipresent on White Ballet players, or if he never came out of his shell caused by the change of club and environment.

In an interview, Illarramendi states that he suffered from a loss of confidence during his time at Madrid: “It was a completely different world, one of the biggest clubs in the world. I lacked confidence at key moments, something you learn with age. The key thing was simply that I didn’t have self-confidence.”

After two seasons, the Spaniard wandered back to Real Sociedad for a bargain price of €16 million, etched in the minds of Real Madrid fans as one of the worst signings in history.

Lucas Silva

Lucas Silva arrived at Real Madrid in January 2015 for 13 million euros. He was 21 years old at the time and was coming off the season of his life, as he was named the best midfielder in the Brazilian Serie A in 2014. It was Ancelotti who brought him into his team, who said several times that he would be the future of Real Madrid’s midfield and he couldn’t praise Silva in terms of defending or distributing passes.

He made his debut for the White Ballet in February 2015, and a few days later he even played a full match in the Champions League against Schalke, which the Spaniards won 2-0. But the match against Schalke was his last Champions League appearance of both the season and his career.

In his first six months in Spain, he racked up 334 minutes in La Liga without any goals or assists. He was sacked by Ancelotti at the end of the season. This factor, too, may have been key to the rest of his career.

Rafael Benítez came to the helm of the royal club and Silva was condemned to a guest stint at Marseille. This is probably where the most serious problem arises. The Brazilian was supposed to be picking up minutes in France so he could return to Madrid, but he failed to hold down a starting lineup position. In January 2016, Silva turned down a loan move to Anderlecht and so stopped playing in Marseille altogether.

After a loan spell at Cruzeiro, the Brazilian agreed to terminate his contract with the White Ballet in 2019. Thus, he made nine appearances for Real Madrid in the first half of the season and then never added a start. Thus, fans might not even remember him, the only plus factor being the fact that he didn’t cost much money.

Source