HARRISON — Three years removed from ending the 12-year wait for Real Madrid’s 10th UEFA Champions League title together, Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti are preparing to be on opposite ends of the touchline.
The Frenchman’s Merengues will face the Italian’s Bayern Munich at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Wednesday night in what will be the final match of the International Champions Cup for both sides.
The match will mark the first time Zidane faces the manager he worked under as both a player and a manager.
Before they led Madrid to glory at the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon in 2013/14 together as manager and assistant, they won the UEFA Intertoto Cup together in Turin as Ancelotti managed Zidane in his final two seasons at Juventus between 1999-2001.
“I have a lot of respect for Carlo. I played under him, so I’ve known him for a long time and he’s a person I admire a lot and I learned a lot from him,” Zidane said. “As the No. 3 under him — Paul Clement was (at Madrid) as well — I wanted to learn what I had to do and I learned a lot from him. Now it makes me happy to be the first-team manager at Real Madrid because of him.”
Ancelotti was sacked a season after making history in the Spanish capital due to a trophyless season in 2014-15. After his replacement Rafael Benitez’s poor early season form led him to be sacked in January, Zidane was promoted from Real Madrid Castilla to the main squad, assuming managerial duties at a top-flight side for the first time.
The move came as no surprise to Ancelotti.
“We talked a lot when he was my assistant and I was convinced he had the quality and the capacity to train Real Madrid,” the Italian said. “He had experience, he was a great player, he had charisma, which I believe is the most important thing in terms of creating a relationship with the players. I think he’s gotten along well with his players, so I’m sure he’ll do well.”
Real Madrid went on a tear upon Zidane’s appointment, winning its final 12 matches in La Liga and reducing Barcelona’s lead in La Liga from 10 points to one in the process.
He won his first El Clasico against the Catalans 2-1, ending Barcelona’s then-39 match unbeaten run and pushing them to a slump of three consecutive losses in La Liga and being knocked out of the Champions League by Atletico Madrid.
While Barcelona ended up winning La Liga, Real Madrid defeated rivals Atletico Madrid in the final for the second time in three years, winning its 11th Champions League title to end a season that looked lost just five months prior.
While Real attempt to win a second consecutive Champions League for the first time in six decades and a third in four years, Bayern is having another crack at winning the tournament that escaped former manager Pep Guardiola.
The now-Manchester City manager won every trophy he could in his three years in Bavaria aside from the Champions League, being knocked out in the semi-finals of the competition all three years of his contract, a loss to Barcelona sandwiched in between a pair of exits to Real.
Considered by many to be the best manager in the world, Guardiola’s inability to become a European Champion with Bayern after Jupp Heynckes did it the year before he arrived despite having the conditions to do so haunted his spell and tainted his legacy at the club.
Ancelotti will look to end the trophy drought in Munich just as he did in Madrid, Milan and Milan, hoping to do so in Cardiff, Wales, at the end of the 2016-2017 season.
He admitted it’d be special to face his protege and former club in Cardiff, but he wasn’t so keen about a meeting between Wednesday and June 3.
“Before Cardiff, I’d rather not (face Zidane and Real Madrid),” he joked.
Many things will occur between now and then — Real Madrid will face Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup next Tuesday before Bayern kicks off its official season in the DFB-Super Cup against Borussia Dortmund on August 14 — and Ancelotti hopes Zidane will be successful at the club where he shone the brightest as the player.
With just one exception.
“Zidane was my player, my assistant and I wish him all the best in Spain and a little less in Europe,” Ancelotti said.
Follow Brian Fonseca on Twitter @briannnnf for updates on both domestic and European football.
