THERE will be many at Stamford Bridge today for whom George Best is holy. Nearly all will be in the Manchester United end but one will sit in Chelsea’s dugout.

Carlo Ancelotti recalled the first time that, from afar, he began feeling drawn to Britain. What awakened him was not a pop group — though he loves his music — a film or a work of literature. “There was one football player,” said the Italian. “George Best.” Ancelotti was eight when Best won the European Cup and 14 when Best quit top-level football. His rural village near Parma was a world away yet Best became an inspiration. “His story, his life — it interested me,” Ancelotti said. “One time somebody asked, ‘Where did the money go?’ and he said, ‘50% on cars, girls, drinks ... the rest I wasted’ [Best actually said 90%]. In Italy there was another player, Gigi Meroni. He was a very talented player, at Torino. He died in a car crash [Meroni was run over when crossing a street in Turin]. He played like Best, with great joy.”

Among the quartet of great contemporary Italian coaches, Ancelotti is alone in placing giocoso (playing with merriment or, indeed, great joy) at the centre of his values. Fabio Capello, Marcelo Lippi and Giovanni Trappatoni adore rigour. Ancelotti, he of the laconic shrug and the crafty cigarette, is less starchy and he has lightened a whole football club. John Terry is bubbly, Frank Lampard seems exuberant, Didier Drogba has never looked happier or Ashley Cole so relaxed. Mankind was able to clone sheep before the formula was discovered for making Nicolas Anelka grin in public. Ancelotti cracked it and the Frenchman now beams game after game.

Looking at the opposition, Sir Alex Ferguson might recall the marketing slogan once associated with his home city. When Glasgow rebranded itself in the 1980s it proclaimed “Glasgow’s Miles Better” and borrowed Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Happy as a logo, to signal it had emerged from a depression. Chelsea have emerged from one, too, and it is showing on the pitch. At Bolton they scored a goal, featuring insouciant touches by Anelka and Michael Ballack, an impish flick by Lampard and a silken finish by Drogba, that was enough to make the football of Barcelona look robotic. A club who for fans of other teams once represented obnoxious moneyed privilege are in danger of being admired.

Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea simply won matches. Ancelotti’s win hearts. How has he wreaked this transformation? Andrei Shevchenko does not often hit the mark nowadays but may prove accurate in his prediction when Ancelotti was appointed. “He’ll do fantastically,” said Shevchenko, whose best form came under the Italian at AC Milan. “He’s a brilliant coach and a good man.” Those last words pinpoint Ancelotti’s feelgood factor. Ballack said: “You can’t really describe it. You like people or you don’t and I — I think everyone — likes Ancelotti.”

Petr Cech said: “He brings calmness to all the players and creates a good atmosphere.” Terry added: “Carlo is a modern-day manager who understands what modern-day players feel.”

Terry and Cech are company men; you might expect them to praise the boss. But even the awkward agree with Ballack. Deco proved too maverick for Luiz Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink and after “the worst season of my life” in 2008-09 was ready to leave for Inter Milan until a trip to Ancelotti’s office. “I had a long chat with the manager when he first arrived and it was good, very good. It’s so important for me to know I have the confidence of the coach,” explained Deco, another who is now smiling and reborn.

Clearly, Ancelotti has a social talent if so many diverse characters like him and, in person, his charm is disarming. Humour is his key. I was one of four reporters who met him at Cobham on a squally day in late July and this was his droll reaction to the weather: “Sun. Rain. Wind. In 10 minutes ... the whole lot. Fantastic! Much better than Italy!”

He was thrown straight into a crisis upon being appointed, thanks to Manchester City’s pursuit of Terry, but his way of managing it was consummate. He told the player how much he rated him then backed off to give Terry space and in press conferences, when every question was, “Is John staying?” Ancelotti kept smiling and repeating his certainty that a player “who is Chelsea” would never leave.

There was subtlety and strategy in such an approach. Being a nice guy is not enough. Hiddink’s management philosophy is to get players to buy into his vision and Ancelotti is similar, giving the squad their say before leading them in his direction. “I won’t shout, I will explain. I want to have a discussion with my players. I don’t want to impose on them. I want to propose,” he said. Note: the No 2 he brought from Italy is a sports psychologist, Bruno Demichelis.

When Terry said his manager “understands what modern-day players feel,” he means that Ancelotti gives them what every £100,000-a-week internationally branded athlete perceives should be theirs: respect. Even Ferguson does not use the hairdryer much these days. Ancelotti’s treat-them-like-adults approach works especially well when his players are adults. Many at Chelsea are aged close to or over 30 and Ancelotti embraces that age bracket. “I don’t think that,” he said when the idea that Chelsea are an old team was put to him. “Terry is a young player. Lampard is a young player. When a player is 30 years old he is at the centre of his career. Ten years ago, he would have been [regarded as] an old player. Not now, with the new physical training, 30 years old is the best moment of a player’s career.”

Terry, Lampard and company are experienced enough to grasp technical concepts and their communicator-manager can explain complex ideas. In this way, Ancelotti has shifted the Chelsea paradigm. Mourinho brought 4-3-3 to the club; Grant, Scolari and Hiddink did not tamper with it. Now they are using 4-4-2 but with a diamond, a concept that failed when Sven-Göran Eriksson tried it with England. Chelsea are succeeding and it impresses Ferguson, though the United manager has a reservation.

“I think he [Ancelotti] has done a really good job quickly and he is helped because he has had experienced players round him. They can understand changes of tactics better than young players,” Ferguson said. “If you look at Ballack and Deco, they come from places where tactics are more of an issue. Anelka and Drogba have played abroad so it’s not surprising they have adapted. It is the same to how he operated in Milan with the difference being that at Milan he had Kaka. That made a hell of a difference and the point I would make is that Chelsea are still looking for somebody in a forward role to balance their team better. They have tried Lampard there, they have tried Deco there, they have even tried [Florent] Malouda there and now they have brought in Joe Cole. But they have the experience to cope.”

The system is based on using the extra numbers in central midfield the diamond provides to ensure a large share of possession. Players in the diamond are expected to swap roles. Ballack starts on the right side of it but may find himself taking over from Michael Essien as the defender at its base, from Deco at its attacking tip or from Lampard on the left. Anelka and Drogba are dovetailing as strikers, confounding those who said they could not play together and, again, it is because interplay is encouraged. Ancelotti has each using what he is good at to help the other — Drogba holding the ball up, Anelka finding space — and Anelka angles his runs to the left flank to grant him width not provided by the midfield.

Give good players a lot of the ball and freedom of movement but the security of a clear structure. Make them relaxed, empowered, confident. What it leads to is giocoso. Ancelotti has a good record against Ferguson and while United have fitness worries, with Rio Ferdinand out of today’s game and Nemanja Vidic feeling his way back from a calf problem, Chelsea are in rude health. Though the club’s transfer ban has been suspended and they will be allowed to trade in the January window, Ancelotti seems underwhelmed by the prospect, given the recent returns of Joe Cole and Paulo Ferreira from knee injuries. “Because of this, I can say we don’t need other players,” he said.

At last, Roman Abramovich may have found a permanent [Hiddink being a temporary appointment] successor to Mourinho who stops fans pining for the Special One. Ferguson said: “I don’t think Carlo is worried about [Mourinho] at all, he has his own CV. It is impressive, he has won two European Cups and the Scudetto and how many medals has he got? His pedigree is unquestionable.”

Ancelotti does not feel in anybody’s shadow, though he bows to the memory of George Best.

SON PERSUADES DROGBA TO CLEAN UP ACT

Didier Drogba has revealed that words of criticsm from his eight-year-old son Isaac convinced the striker he had to change, after the storm of criticism he received for his wild-eyed rant at referee Tom Henning Ovrebo when Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League semi-finals by Barcelona last May. ‘My son was watching with his friends from school,’ Drogba said, ‘and I was embarrassed for my behaviour. The good thing was that Isaac came to me and said, “Dad, you should have had more penalties, but it’s not right to do that to referees”. I told him never to do what I did. He’s eight and plays for Chelsea under-nines but is very different to me. He’s really calm.’