Real Madrid parted ways with Carlo Ancelotti after the conclusion of a trophyless campaign. While that has historically been the stance taken by the club in a season in which they are dominated by rivals Barcelona and without silverware, Carlo's dismissal was about so much more than just the results on the pitch (as important as those may be).
Los Blancos didn't have any sort of tactical identity, and their players, if anything, regressed despite adding Kylian Mbappe to a team that won the Champions League. While all of the squad issues caused by Florentino Perez and a stingy board cannot be entirely ascribed to Ancelotti, there was a pervasive sense that he wasn't the right guy to lead a younger, new generation of stars at Real Madrid.
But while Ancelotti was more of a (very) successful bridge to Xabi Alonso, the leader of the ostensible "Revolution" at the Santiago Bernabeu, than the long-term solution, the criticisms of his unwillingness to get young players involved were often exaggerated.
Many of the players Ancelotti was urged to play, such as Alvaro Rodriguez and Antonio Blanco, aren't exactly distinguishing themselves as can't-miss players in LaLiga for lower level clubs like Getafe and Deportivo Alaves. They, like a long line of academy prospects before them, are simply useful squad players not at the level of Real Madrid, which is exactly how Ancelotti utilized them.
Estevao Willian is further along than Endrick
Or take Arda Guler. So many Real Madrid fans had their pitchforks out for Ancelotti throughout the 2024/25 season because he wasn't being played enough. But by the end of the year, Ancelotti had gotten more out of Guler than any other manager would have. Who else would have had the vision to morph him into an Andrea Pirlo-esque regista, where he has been considerably better than as a right winger?
Now the manager of the Brazil national team, Ancelotti is already showing that he is willing to give young gems an early opportunity. In his first practices as coach, Ancelotti was giving Chelsea starlets Andrey Santos and Estevao Willian starting reps, and he went ahead and gave them minutes in his first managerial appearance for Brazil in an important World Cup qualifying match against Ecuador.
In fact, Ancelotti went ahead and started the 18-year-old, and while the young Willian failed to distinguish himself in an anonymous 0-0 draw for Brazil, it was more down to the team's performance as a whole and a reminder that Carlo has a lot of work to do to get this sagging Selecao anywhere near back to the heights they reached in the 2000s.
But Santos, Willian, and other young Brazilian gems will get their chances under Carlo. Willian, by all indications, is further along and more dynamic than Endrick was at Palmeiras, where they were teammates before Endrick started up with Real Madrid in the 2024/25 season.
Madridistas, no doubt, have juxtaposed Willian getting the start in Ancelotti's first game with Brazil with the limited minutes Endrick played for Real Madrid, but those who are honest in their analysis will also acknowledge that Endrick is a lot more raw than most players in the Madrid first team.
Real Madrid has an even higher standard than Brazil
Whereas Willian has physical limitations in terms of strength that can be worked on in the gym, Endrick is clearly behind in terms of maturity and mentality, which may need to be rectified with a loan deal. Real Madrid doesn't seem interested in going that route just yet, but nobody who watches Endrick's shoot-first mentality, lack of willingness to press, and limited passing quality thinks that he's ready to start regularly for Real Madrid in anything beyond the Copa del Rey.
And like Guler, Rodrygo Goes, Vinicius Junior, and so many other excellent young talents at Real Madrid, Endrick would get his opportunity to carry the torch under Ancelotti when he is ready. The fact is that he wasn't ready last season, whereas Willian, by Ancelotti's evaluation, is.
There's also the matter that the standard of the best club in the world, Real Madrid, is higher than the standard of the rebuilding Brazil national team, especially when you consider the increasing gulf in quality between club and national sides.
Ancelotti had to hold young players to a higher standard at Real Madrid, and the reality is that most of them were flat-out not good enough for the team or, like Guler and Endrick, they were at varying levels of readiness to play real minutes for Madrid in important matches.
A lot of the heat Ancelotti got was simply fans scapegoating the leader in the room for realities they don't want to accept, like this one: most young players are lottery tickets, not magic wands.