Carlo Ancelotti has a tough act to follow at Chelsea

16 May 2009 17:46
Guus Hiddink, a smooth operator from the second he stepped in to help old ally Roman Abramovich in February, is conducting his exit after three months at Stamford Bridge with similar style. When not ingratiating himself with his employers by stressing how much he "loved" working at Chelsea, the Dutchman is granting free publicity for Sister Act, the West End musical produced by his friend and compatriot Joop van den Ende. [LNB]On May 30, preferably in the glow of victory in the FA Cup final, Hiddink is "100 per cent certain" that he will be returning to Russia to help the national side resume their World Cup qualification campaign. The other increasing certainty for Chelsea is that Ancelotti moves in the opposite direction, having been courted assiduously by Abramovich and become increasingly alienated at Milan. [LNB] Related ArticlesHiddink admits to regretsChelsea join hunt for AlvesCrossing the divideChelsea v Blackburn: PreviewChelsea on alert over AdebayorAncelotti to target Young at ChelseaHiddink made no effort to identify his successor but Ancelotti could be installed in that position as early as next week. He has endured a series of diplomatic humiliations this season by his fellow rossoneri; first he learned that the club were grooming Leonardo, the Brazilian technical director, as his replacement without his blessing; then Silvio Berlusconi, the owner and Italian prime minister, made some apparently off-the-cuff remark to tourists in Egypt last week, claiming that the manager was a tactical liability. [LNB]Even though those comments appeared in La Repubblica, an anti-Berlusconi newspaper, the owner is understood not to have made any attempt to contact Ancelotti to deny them. It could prove a decisive breakdown in relations, Ancelotti feeling that should he safely shepherd Milan back into the Champions League for next season, his job at the San Siro is done. [LNB]Hiddink's job is not done yet, not quite. He still has the Cup against Everton to win, and turned down the opportunity of television work at the Champions League final in Rome on May 27 – admitting that he did not have the "fresh feeling" to watch a game he believes Chelsea should be contesting after the perceived injustice of their semi-final loss to Barcelona, and where he thinks Manchester United will prevail. [LNB]So the attention is turning, perhaps prematurely, to his legacy at Chelsea. The immense Champions League disappointment aside, Hiddink's accomplishments in so brief a spell have been uniformly impressive. He is hard-headed, he is well-liked; he never shirks a press conference in light of a bad result, nor a hard question. [LNB]He is also arguably the most effective foreign communicator in English to have graced the Premier League, a relief for Chelsea after the more halting efforts of Luiz Felipe Scolari. But it raises the question of how Ancelotti, whose English is non-existent, will fare in his stead. [LNB]Hiddink is modest about his linguistic abilities, saying: "Sometimes I stumble as well, sometimes I have to rephrase your question to get the message. But I don't have the fear to make errors." Equally, he confesses to having endured the same trials that Ancelotti is likely to face. [LNB]"Of course it's important if somebody is coming in and dominating the English way of communicating. I had the same experience. I went to Spain in 1990 from Turkey, and I signed my contract with Valencia. I had my signing ceremony in May, and I had a press conference through an interpreter, in English. Then in May I started studying and I locked myself up for five, six weeks with a Spanish course – 12, 18 hours a day. [LNB]"Then I managed to do my first press conference in broken Spanish in the first week of July. From then on I got rid of my interpreter. Going into Spanish life, I had to manage the language. I experienced that I could communicate, first in the style of a telegram, and bit by bit my Spanish got better. I think it's the same for foreign managers coming in and not completely controlling the language."[LNB]His parting messages to Chelsea are similarly elegant and sympathetic. "I speak frequently to Roman," Hiddink said, explaining that Abramovich had never sought to bend his ear to stay.[LNB] "Roman knows the situation in Chelsea, in the Russian federation, in the academy in Russia. He knows what is going on in all three segments. I'm proud to be here, and I'm happy that I could give my contribution. I admire clubs that have high standards, not just in their performances on the pitch but in how they show themselves inside and outside football." [LNB] 

Source: Telegraph