Real Madrid refuse to say whether Carlo Ancelotti will stay on as coach

 
Real Madrid have refused to say whether Carlo Ancelloti will stay on next season although the coach has said he would like another tilt at the Champions League with the Spanish giants.

Asked whether the Italian will remain at the club after five days in which Real lost out on the Spanish title to Barcelona and were eliminated from the Champions League by Juventus, the club’s institutional director, Emilio Butragueño, said: “It’s not the time to say. And nor is it the place. There’s a game left to play and we need to prepare for what’s coming.”

Real beat Espanyol 4-1 on Sunday in their penultimate game of the season but that was not enough to deny Barcelona, Lionel Messi’s goal seeing off Atlético Madrid to win La Liga in Luis Enrique’s first season as coach. Real hold on to second place with just the dead rubber at home to Getafe on Saturday to come


Ancelotti, who took over as coach from José Mourinho in 2013, winning the Champions League in his first season but losing out on the title to Atlético, said after the Espanyol game that he wanted another term at the helm. “As always, I’d like to win the most important competition which is the Champions League – and the league too,” he told AS. “This season we were close at one point and we are going to try again next season.”
The Italian offered his congratulations to Luis Enrique and suggested Real had lost out to Barça after injuries disrupted the closing stages of the campaign. “The overall balance of our season isn’t positive,” he said. “At Madrid, we always play to win and we haven’t been able to this time. We had a great first half of the campaign but the second half of the season was complicated and it wasn’t enough to be champions.”
Butragueño’s comments echoed his response to Real’s aggregate defeat in the semi-finals of the Champions League after they could only draw at home to Juventus on Wednesday and he similarly refused to endorse another season for Ancelotti. Asked whether the coach would continue, he deflected the question by saying: “Today we have been knocked out, that’s what matters. We’re all sad. Everything else is secondary.”