What was wrong with Carlo Ancelotti? Florentino Perez: "I don't know"
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez says that he doesn't know what was wrong with Carlo Ancelotti, but the club needed to take a new direction.
The Italian manager was sacked after a season in which Madrid finished second in La Liga and failed to reach the Champions League and Copa del Rey finals.
Asked what Ancelotti was lacking, Perez replied: "I don't know".
The Los Blancos chief says he didn't speak to the club captains before his press conference on Monday night, claiming that he and the rest of the board only reached a decision in the minutes before he spoke.
Perez said: "The Real Madrid board has decided to relieve Carlo Ancelotti of his duties. As you may all imagine, this has been a very difficult decision to make, but we have to decide what we think is best for the club.
"Carlo Ancelotti has earned the affection of the whole managing board, including mine, and also of all Real Madrid fans.
"He is the man who brought us La Decima, but we believe now that Real Madrid needs a new impulse. We will tell everyone next week who our coach for the next season will be.
"We have reached a final decision very recently, just a few minutes ago, although we had been thinking about it throughout the whole season, like we do every year."
Perez said that Real Madrid will select a new coach by next week, and it would be better if he was already a Spanish speaker. The No 1 candidate for the role is Napoli boss Rafa Benitez.
"Next week we will know the name of the new coach," said Perez. "Now is not the time to talk about it, but it would be very good if he spoke Spanish."
