Ancelotti: “We won’t sign anyone else, we’re fine as it is”

Carlo Ancelotti is back. With pre-season starting and with Real Madrid looking ahead to the Soccer Champions Tour, the coach took part in a press conference on Thursday.

Looking ahead to the pre-season tournament, where Los Blancos will face Barcelona, Club América and Juventus, he said: “I’ve never been to Las Vegas and everyone talks about it. I’m excited to go, even if I won’t have much time to enjoy it. LA and San Francisco are also nice cities to go to. We’ll face teams with different kinds of characteristics, which will be good for our preparation. We’ll face Barcelona, who we know well, and then a Juventus side with new signings like Pogba and Di María. It will all be good for helping us prepare for the first official match against Eintracht Frankfurt.”

Ancelotti on the Clásico in Las Vegas

Reflecting a little more on the pre-season clash with Barcelona, the Italian added: “It’s never a friendly against Barcelona. The fact we face them early in the season is good too. We’ll both want to win this game here and put on a show, as Real Madrid vs Barcelona always is.”

Ancelotti on motivation for 2022/23

Although Real Madrid have just won a LaLiga and Champions League double, they won’t rest on their laurels. As Ancelotti explained: “Winning gives me a lot of happiness so I want to keep this moment of happiness. We’d like to repeat this season what we did last season. We are looking to adapt new players into our philosophy. We have room to improve and do better compared to last season. We have more confident and knowledge.”

Ancelotti on the new signings

Discussing Aurélien Tchouaméni and Antonio Rüdiger in more detail, Ancelotti said: “Tchouaméni and Rüdiger will bring a lot of quality to the squad. Rüdiger is a great centre-back who can play in different positions, while Tchouaméni is the same as a midfielder. He is younger but is already playing for the France national team. Competition in the squad is the key to success. They both only arrived today. Of course they’ll need some time to adapt, but not too much since they have so much quality.”

Ancelotti on whether there will be any more signings

The coach was asked if Real Madrid are planning any more signings and he completely dismissed that question. He replied: “I can tell you we won’t sign anyone. We’re fine as it is.”

Ancelotti on the No.9 position

Karim Benzema is still going to be the starting No.9, but it’ll be a long season for the 34-year-old. Discussing some alternatives for that position, including that of Eden Hazard as a false nine, Ancelotti said: “We have a lot of options for that position. Benzema is the top one. But, we have to understand it’ll be a strange season with the World Cup in the middle. Given the quality Eden has, it could be good for us to have him there.”