Ancelotti s ultimate bet: If he leads Brazil to win the championship, he will break the 92-year curse of the World Cup

On May 12, 2025, the Brazilian Football Association officially announced that the 65-year-old Italian coach Ancelotti was in charge of the national team. This decision directly tore the century-old tradition of Brazilian football - this "football kingdom" has never allowed foreign faces to truly dominate their national team. Even in the darkest moment when the local area defeated Germany 1-7 in 2014, the Brazilians still stubbornly rejected Guardiola's olive branch, but this time, they chose to change.

Ancelotti's resume is perfect: the five major league champions, 4 Champions League trophys, 24 club champions... But behind this glory, there are two fatal gaps: he has never coached the national team and has never led a non-European team. What's more subtle is that in the 92-year history of the World Cup, all champion coaches have the same nationality as the team. Even the best Asian and African teams with foreign coaches are popular in the quarterfinals (such as Hiddink's South Korea in 2002). For example, England hired Erikson and Capello for a lot of money, but these foreign coaches never broke through the glass ceiling of the World Cup final. What Ancelotti embarked on at this moment was a thorny road that had never been passed by.

If Ancelotti can top the 2026 US, Canada and Mexico World Cup, it will fill two historical gaps at the same time: one is that the first foreign coach leads Brazil to win the championship, and the other is the first "transnational champion coach" in the history of the World Cup. The time left for "An Pang" is not enough. The countdown to the 2026 US, Canada and Mexico World Cup has started. The Brazilian team's star flavor is bleak in the midfield and backcourt, and the stumbling blocks of the Copa America qualifiers all indicate that the road to reconstruction is full of thorns. Ancelotti needs to combine superstars into a whole like he did at Real Madrid. This requires not only tactical wisdom, but also a deep understanding of Brazil's football culture. Fortunately, this Italian coach has a deep relationship with Brazilian football: Vinicius, Rodrigo and other players in Real Madrid have been branded with the Ann tactics, and Neymar had confronted him during his time at Barcelona. This sense of familiarity may resolve the common pain of running-in for foreign coaches and allow tactical concepts to penetrate into the texture of the Samba Legion more quickly.