Carlo Ancelotti to Brazil is pure Italian Maphia

The most iconic moment we’ll remember about Carlo Ancelotti’s run at Real Madrid is the one on the bus during the celebrations for the 2021/22 double win, when the club clinched both LaLiga and the Champions League. In the picture, the managers smokes a cigar and wears a pair of Off-White sunglasses, next to Rodrygo, Vinícius Jr., Éder Militão, and David Alaba - three of whom would soon become his superstars of a new generation of the Brazilian national team - Carlo Ancelotti himself will take Dorival Juniors's place. Today, the Brazilian national team is still far from being truly competitive on the World Cup stage: their last win dates back to 2002 (in South Korea and Japan), and it's been six years since they last won the Copa América.

Whether Carlo Ancelotti will be able to restore Brazil to its palmarés - the Seleção is still the most successful national team in World Cup history - is very likely. What we can be sure of, however, is that Ancelotti, the first Italian coach in the history of the Seleção and only the third non-Brazilian after Ramón Platero (1925) and Joreca (1944), will leave a clear, aesthetic, and recognizable mark on the team.

This is how we imagine Carletto: seated like a mafia boss at the center of the room, cigar in hand, surrounded by his loyal hitmen. Some already well known, like Rodrygo, Vinícius Jr., and Éder Militão; others still to be integrated after inconsistent seasons; and some likely reinforcements following a very good season, like Raphinha and Matheus Cunha. 

The Arrival of Carlo Ancelotti and the Return of Brazilcore

So, what do we mean when we talk about the OG nature of the Brazilian national team? Let's look at the Seleção in its prime, the 2002 team. Their skills went hand in hand with a kind of aesthetic madness shown by the players: Ronaldo Nazário’s controversial haircut, Cafu’s chewing gum, any of Ronaldinho’s visual signatures you can think of. The Brazilian team has always given off the sense that to win, it also needed to express itself with lightness and creativity on an aesthetic level. In part, because the Brazilian spirit seems intrinsically tied to the need to feel free - visually, stylistically, expressively. And that’s exactly the point: the Brazilian national team under Carlo Ancelotti will need to assert itself and radiate on both fronts - the technical-tactical side, meaning results, and the aesthetic side - where it can already rely on a now well-established and recognizable trend: Brazilcore.

The aesthetic of Brazilcore is so deeply rooted and powerful that it’s hard to talk about it truly disappearing and then coming back - it would be like saying Converse or Vans are making a comeback. In reality, it’s more accurate to say that Brazilcore -everything that falls under the yellow-green aesthetic umbrella, especially in its football expression - has been reimagined, reinvented, and taken on new forms. Credit goes to a generational shift, with the new wave of Brazilian players becoming protagonists not just on the pitch but in personal expression too, unapologetically and without filters: just think of the now-iconic goal celebrations by Raphinha and Endrick with their Oakley Juliet sunglasses, to name just two examples.

With Carlo Ancelotti's arrival, this aesthetic legacy could take on a fresh direction: after all, we're talking about the most successful Italian manager of all time, but also a strong personality built on clear stylistic identity: the cigar, the many iconic outfits worn throughout his career, which - combined with the already distinct flair of Brazilian players - produce something truly spectacular.