To sack Ancelotti

The Italian’s last supper was a humbling affair after defeat in Paris. Now the Germans are looking towards a 30-year-old from Hoffenheim to provide the answers

Carlo Ancelotti was never a fan of Bayern Munich’s unusual tradition of the post-match banquet where, whatever the result, the staff and players are obliged to break bread with sponsors and supporters into the early hours of the morning after the exertions of a top-level European game.

There is food, drink and speeches too, which, depending on which way you look at it, can be a unifying occasion at the end of a triumphant night or, in different circumstances, a bad defeat followed by something resembling a bad wedding reception. The score was against Bayern in Paris on Wednesday night, a 3-0 humbling against Paris St-Germain, but in they went to the banquet, following the Bayern principle of win or lose, on the stews.

Ancelotti knew something was up when the speech given by chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was delivered in German at a pace that both men knew that the Italian would be unable to follow. The atmosphere on the plane home was, by all accounts, as frosty as the window panes of a Bavarian ski resort in season. By the next morning, Rummenigge and president Uli

Rummenigge and Hoeness were both in the Ribery and Robben camp