This week the Chelsea manager launched the English version of his autobiography, an entertaining and insightful account into Carlo Ancelotti's life so far.

To celebrate the release, the Italian sat down with the Official Chelsea Website to discuss its content.

The book, The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius, is dedicated both to Carlo's parents, Giuseppe and Cecilia, and his friend and former team-mate, Stefano Borgonovo, an international striker who has developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease), a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder also suffered by physicist Stephen Hawking.

Just like Professor Hawking, Borgonovo can communicate with others only by painstakingly focusing his eyes on letters on a computer screen, yet he has maintained a close bond with Ancelotti, who will donate all proceeds from the book to the Stefano Borgonovo Foundation (http://www.fondazionestefanoborgonovo.it/).

'I wrote this book just for this, it shows my emotions to the world but I was not interested to do this, I just hope it can help find the money for research,' says the 51-year-old.

'Stefano was my team-mate, and he has a problem. We need everyone to help him because maybe there is a solution for this illness, but we have to be fast because his condition is not good. He cannot move, he can just speak with his eyes.'

It is a devastating situation for a talented player Ancelotti remembers well from their time together at the San Siro.

'As a player he scored a lot of goals but did not play much for the top teams, he had a lot of time in Fiorentina and played for Milan for just one year,' recalls the former midfielder.

'He scored in the semi-final of the European Cup in 1990 against Bayern, and was a good striker inside the box. He was not so quick but very clever. He is a good guy, very funny, likes to joke, even now, but he has a very dangerous illness.'

His parents are Ancelotti's other inspiration in life even now, and he believes his early years were crucial in developing the man he has become and his two major loves - football and food, a theme often repeated throughout his autobiography, where he refers to the Community Shield as a large empty plate, and compares Yury Zhirkov to a tender steak.

'This book is my history, when I was a player and a coach, and I wanted to put inside it the different stories of my life,' he explains. 'It is a funny book because there are a lot of things that happened in my career, the relationships with team-mates and coaches, all good things.

'In the book I think I explained well, my childhood was an important period in my life, where I learned discipline, passion, and food!' he says, referring to his days spent on the family farm in Reggiolo, northern Italy.

'If I have to choose between the two, I choose football,' he continues. 'I keep these things separate because with the food it is not just the food, it is the moment when you eat, the moment of the relationship to be together with your friends and family, I have never been to a restaurant on my own.'

Ancelotti is fortunate to be such a popular man, seemingly with the fans and media in England as well as those close to him. He admits this is as much due to results as much as his own laid-back style to management.

'I like to have a good relationship with all the people that work around me,' he reasons. 'I think I have the respect of the media, I think, I know very well that sometimes the relationship depends on results.

'For example, Fabio Capello now has a problem but I think you have to pay attention to the criticism. Sometimes there is a right criticism but when you attack the person I do not like this. He is still a very good coach.'

Part of Capello's image problem seems to be his difficulty in conveying his ideas to the press, an affliction not suffered by the man in charge at Stamford Bridge, who has gradually improved his grasp of English over the past 12 months.

This time last year he admitted he was still not always comfortable in expressing himself, particularly when dissatisfied with his side, but he feels it is no longer a problem.

'Now I am in English,' he smiles. 'I don't like to shout, in my career it happened a bit but not a lot of times.

'I think it is better if you can explain things, mistakes, without shouting. Now after one year my relationship with the players is very close, so they can understand me very well and I can understand them very well. If you shout all the time they do not listen.'

Last season's Double is all the evidence you need to see things went rather swimmingly in his new country, though the former Milan and Juventus coach still strives for improvement, both from his squad and himself.

'In football there are a lot of things, a lot of details that you can always improve,' he says. 'Every experience can give you the possibility to improve. I had good experience before I came here and now I think I improved with this experience.

'There are not a lot of differences between Italy and England, but I think the English players have a stronger mentality, they like to work very hard on the pitch every day.'

Ancelotti is in his element when discussing football, so imagine the enjoyment he will have gained from last week's Uefa Elite Club Coaches Forum in Switzerland, where he spent time with Jose Mourinho, Claudio Ranieri, Didier Deschamps, Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola to name but a few.

'We talk about everything, the rules, the balls, they asked us what made the difference during the World Cup and Champions League,' he says, shedding light on how a football manager spends his free time.

'It is a good moment to have a relationship with the other coaches, it is a good moment during the season because there are the most important coaches in Europe and it is important to know about everything. After that we stay together and speak in the bar like supporters, it is fun.'

Ancelotti has had his fair share of that throughout his glittering career, and it shines through in The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius. The story of his friend Stefano Borgonovo however, is too serious to ignore.

The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius is available in the Megastore at Stamford Bridge or online by clicking here.

Carlo Ancelotti will be signing copies of the book in the Megastore on Wednesday, October 6, from 4-6pm.

Due to time constraints only copies of the book will be signed and we cannot guarantee everybody will be seen.