Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti wins LaLiga to become first coach to earn titles in all of Europe’s top five leagues

Real Madrid have been crowned LaLiga champions for the 35th time after Saturday’s 4-0 win against Espanyol at the Bernabeu saw Spanish football’s most decorated team add the 2021-22 title to their collection (stream the replay on ESPN+ in the U.S.).

Los Blancos took a vast 15-point lead into the weekend and required just one point to render the gap between them and the chasing pack mathematically unassailable.

The result also saw coach Carlo Ancelotti break new ground by becoming the first manager in history to win championships in all of Europe’s top five leagues.

The 62-year-old Italian had already made history earlier this month when he reached the semifinals of the Champions League in a fourth different decade as a manager — a total that goes up to five if you include his career as a player — and now he has further augmented his status as one of European football’s true greats.

An interesting facet of Ancelotti’s achievement is that he has won each of the five major European league championships as a coach on just one occasion, and as such he cannot claim to have the most number of overall title wins among his peers (more on that later).

Here’s how Ancelotti secured his historic first with a run of titles that began almost 20 years ago.

– Jump to: Other coaches who could win titles in top five leagues
– Hunter: Madrid’s 35th LaLiga title might be their grittiest win yet
– ESPN+ guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more (U.S.)

The first league title of Ancelotti’s managerial career came with AC Milan in 2003-04 when he successfully guided the Rossoneri to glory for their first Scudetto since 1998-99. Ancelotti’s side — who had won the first of two Champions League crowns under his management the previous season — managed to win the league by an impressive margin of 11 points over second-place Roma, who scored three more goals and conceded five…