sport news PETE JENSON: Carlo Ancelotti moves into a league of ONE after winning fourth ... trends now

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Carlo Ancelotti stepped ahead of Bob Paisley and Zinedine Zidane in Paris last night — he now stands alone as the only coach to have won the European Cup four times.

Zidane was in the Stade de France to see him do it. And it was fitting that Vinicius got Real Madrid’s winning goal. The 21-year-old Brazilian is one of Ancelotti’s greatest successes in a season of so many.

Zidane never trusted him, taking him off in the second half of games to the point where at times he lost his focus off the pitch and his faith in front of goal on it.

Ancelotti has backed him almost from the day he arrived from Everton to take over the team for the second time in his career and when he turned in Fede Valverde’s shot he put his manager in a league of his own in terms of European Cups won.

Before the goal Ancelotti had to suffer like never before in this season’s Champions League and that is saying something after such an extraordinary journey to the final.

He had seemed almost too relaxed in the build-up to the game. In midweek there were quips to laughing reporters about his pragmatic approach to styles and systems when he said: ‘The type of players I have always guides me. If I have a fat striker we don’t play a high press.’

He was his usual self-effacing self too, saying he would seek out the advice of his players to find out how best to win the game —they had done it more than any other group over the last decade.