- Ancelotti inherited a squad with problems and quietly identified who he trusted
- James Rodriguez is at Minnesota United and heading to his last World Cup
- The kid he gave a debut to at Anfield is about to sign for Barcelona
Carlo Ancelotti arrived at Everton in December 2019, took one look at the squad he had inherited, and got on with it. Five years on, tracing what happened to the players he left behind tells you quite a lot about the man – and about the club he briefly made feel like something more than itself.
If you have not yet read our piece on the Ancelotti era itself – why it still feels slightly surreal, and what his Brazil appointment this summer brings back – it is worth your time before you read this one. Consider this the what-happened-next piece.
He walked into Goodison and found Jordan Pickford – a goalkeeper whose form the previous season had been, to put it politely, alarming – and immediately made him feel like the most important player in the building.
That is the Ancelotti way.
Pickford duly played England’s first choice at Euro 2020, Euro 2024, and is heading to the World Cup this summer still in possession of the shirt. Whatever you think about him on a given Saturday, the fact that Ancelotti looked at him and saw a keeper rather than a problem tells you something.
The ones he made
Then there was Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Ancelotti put him centre-forward, gave him clarity and confidence, and watched him score 16 Premier League goals in 2020-21 – the best season of his career. DCL never quite hit those heights again at Everton. The injury years ground him down. The doubts crept in.
But this season, at Leeds United on a free transfer, he has scored 14 Premier League goals and is knocking on the door of England’s World Cup squad.
Not bad for a player half of football had quietly written off.
And then there is Anthony Gordon – the teenager Ancelotti handed a debut to in the Merseyside derby in June 2020 when absolutely nobody expected it. He told the press, simply, that Gordon deserved to play. Last week, Gordon completed a £69 million move to Barcelona.
Ancelotti saw him first.
The ones who didn’t last
Not every story has a neat ending, of course.
James Rodriguez. What a season that first one was. Gliding through Premier League defences, producing moments of such absurd quality that you had to remind yourself you were watching Everton.
Ancelotti loved him – they went back to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich together – and when Ancelotti left, James went too. Al-Rayyan, Olympiacos, Sao Paulo, Rayo Vallecano, Leon.
He is now at Minnesota United, winding down before a final World Cup with Colombia this summer in the country where he first made the world fall in love with him in 2014.
His market value is currently listed at €1.5 million.
Gylfi Sigurdsson never recovered from the Ancelotti era — the manager needed a holder and Gylfi could never be that. He was frozen out, eventually sold, and drifted quietly into retirement. Fabian Delph, often injured and always peripheral, also retired, having barely featured.
Lucas Digne thrived briefly after Ancelotti left, moved to Aston Villa, and has since faded from view.
The footnote
The squad Ancelotti left behind was not transformed overnight. But the seeds he planted — trusting Pickford, unleashing Calvert-Lewin, giving Gordon his moment — grew into something real.
One of those players is off to Barcelona. Another is heading to a World Cup as England’s number one. The man who first believed in both of them will be there too, managing Brazil.
As we said in our Ancelotti piece earlier this week — it really was some eighteen months.
