Ancelotti vs. Vilanova: Anticipating the Real Madrid-Barcelona Battles Ahead

"The person who messed up there was me," Jose Mourinho admitted to Fox Sports last summer, via The Daily Mail.

He is, of course, right; the person who messed up when Mourinho poked Tito Vilanova in the eye was Mourinho. With a little bit of luck, the impending battles between newly appointed Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti and Vilanova will be of a different nature, focused on what happens on the pitch.

That's not to be dismissive of the impact the Portuguese coach had on La Liga. His mind games and off-the-pitch battles with Pep Guardiola were fascinating, and helped escalate El Clasico to even higher levels than before. It could only last for so long though, and the arrival of Ancelotti could provide the lick of paint which the rivalry requires.

The two will not start the season as complete strangers. They met in the quarterfinals of last season's Champions League—drawing 2-2 in Paris and 1-1 in the return leg in Catalunya—and, despite exiting the competition on away goals, Ancelotti will take confidence from the way his side fared against the Spanish champions.

In his first press conference, via The Telegraph, the Italian voiced his belief that Los Blancos could do more than just reduce the 15 points they ended behind Barca last season:

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Barcelona have the most competitive team in Spain but we can compete against them very well and the matches between us will be fantastic. I have a lot of confidence that we will be better than them.

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If the 54-year-old is banking on his new toy, Isco, helping to swing the tide in his favor, he might want to be wary of Barca's new toy too, Neymar—both will be looking to make their mark over the next season.

Ancelotti, via The Guardian, has already said he wants "to win by playing the most spectacular football," comments which suggest he'll look for his side to assert more control over matches—as opposed to counter-attacking.

He'll perhaps look for Madrid to manipulate the ball better in midfield, cutting out unnecessary long balls and working more opportunities from open play—32 of the club's 103 league goals last season came from set pieces.

Having demonstrated great flexibility in his managerial career so far—from a midfield diamond at AC Milan, to 4-3-3 at Chelsea and his early days in France, into the innovative 4-2-2-2 that he finished the Ligue 1 campaign with—he can hardly be tarred with the brush that suggests Italian coaches are negative.

On the other side of the divide, how Vilanova implements Lionel Messi and Neymar in next season's battles with Madrid provides a fascinating aspect to the fixture.

The Barcelona manager is still trying to break out of Guardiola's shadow by stamping his own mark on La Blaugrana. The early stages of last season suggested that was by being more direct, but pressing slightly less, as Barca scored and conceded more goals.

His unfortunate illness grinded that to a slight halt, but he may pick up on a similar train of thought this coming season.

Either way, they're both managers who want to win attractively and, more importantly, want to win on the pitch, not off it. With no Supercopa meeting to suss each other out, the first Clasico already promises to be an absolute treat, as Vilanova and Ancelotti look to their teams, rather than their mouths, to do the talking.