Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Beckham: Mind-blowing squad of players Carlo Ancelotti has managed | OneFootball

Carlo Ancelotti has pretty much coached any and every world-class footballer worth their salt.

Like, seriously, across the legendary manager’s illustrious career spanning the likes of Chelsea, Juventus, AC Milan and Real Madrid, there are little to none of the greatest male players of the 21st century that he hasn’t worked with.

The legends that came through Barcelona in the late 2000s and 2010s are pretty much the only major exception with Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta never having paired up with the enigmatic Italian.

Which legends has Ancelotti managed?

However, those few anomalies aside, you pretty much have the pick of every top baller since Ancelotti's move to the dugout to choose from when it comes to picking his greatest ever XI of players.

Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola will probably endure as superior coaches to Ancelotti, sure, but their finest ever squad or line-up of players they managed will never be able to compete with that of Don Carlo.

Earlier this year, we underlined that fact by revealing the staggering XI you can make from Ancelotti alumni, but the crazy thing about the options at our disposal was that Karim Benzema didn't even make the cut.

Yes, that's right, the unstoppable striker who just became only the second player other than Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi to win the Ballon d'Or since 2007 couldn't even make the bench.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the mind-blowing depths of talent that we're talking about here and in light of Benzema's well-deserved triumph this week, we simply had to fan things out from simply a starting XI.

In fact, we're going beyond second, third or fourth-string team sheets and swinging for the fences by imaging the head-spinning amount of squad depth Ancelotti would have at his disposal if he got the whole band back to together.

The insane squad depth of players Ancelotti has managed

So we hopped on over to Chosen 11 to build a squad depth graphic that demonstrated our point and while we were, of course, limited to an extent by how names could actually fit on the digital pitch, we nevertheless went all out to create the wildest tactics sheet you've ever seen.

Honestly, there's no way that we could possibly overstate how good this squad is, so prepare to have your minds blown as you check out the unbelievable depth you can get from the greatest players that Ancelotti has ever coached.

Goalkeepers

Gianluigi Buffon, Petr Cech, Manuel Neuer, Edwin van der Sar, Thibaut Courtois and Dida

Defenders

Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Nesta, Ashley Cole, Marcelo, David Alaba, Alessandro Costacurta, Pepe, Jaap Stam, Thiago Silva, John Terry, Fabio Cannavaro, Mats Hummels, Ricardo Carvalho, Cafu, Philipp Lahm, Sergio Ramos and Gianluca Zambrotta

Midfielders

Kaka, Rivaldo, Alessandro del Piero, Thomas Muller, Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf, Luka Modric, Edgar Davids, Michael Ballack, Deco, Zinedine Zidane, Gennaro Gattuso, Frank Lampard, Xabi Alonso, Toni Kroos, Ronaldinho, David Beckham, Arjen Robben, Angel Di Maria and Gareth Bale

Strikers

Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Filippo Inzaghi, Hernan Crespo, Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Karim Benzema, Didier Drogba and Andriy Shevchenko

Image: Full squad depth of players Ancelotti has managed

Is that the craziest squad ever?

I mean... I mean... it's daft how good that is.

Look, the crazy thing about the situation is that we've probably forgot a couple of legends along the way, because it's just that staggering how many legends have called Ancelotti their manager at some point or another.

Besides, there must have been at least a few names in the graphic that caught you out: did you remember Rivaldo's spell at AC Milan and did you recall that Ancelotti oversaw Beckham's swan-song at Paris Saint-Germain?

Yours truly certainly forgot that Van der Sar and Henry played under him at Juventus, so we don't doubt for a second that you could go even further if you dug deeper and deeper into the record books.

Naturally, though, we couldn't include everybody that Ancelotti coached with the squad proving so insane that the likes of David Trezeguet, Franck Ribery, Nicolas Anelka, Joshua Kimmich, Casemiro, Kalidou Koulibaly and more couldn't quite fit in.

And when that's the calibre of your reserves, then you know for a fact that Ancelotti's ultimate squad of players that he's managed wouldn't lose a single match ever. We need a lie down.

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