Joao Virginia "deserves the compliments" handed to him after his performance in Everton's FA Cup loss to Manchester City.
The 21-year-old started only the second senior game of his career at Goodison last night.
But Virginia made a number of excellent saves and delivered a confident performance against a team, Ancelotti described, as the best in the world.
Virginia tipped a Raheem Sterling effort past the post and kept a deflected Aymeric Laporte out, pushing it onto the bar, but was helpless to stop Ilkay Gundogan converting the rebound.
"Joao did really well. He showed his quality," Ancelotti said.
"He has not the experience but the quality and personality he has shown in training. And so I think he deserves the compliments because he did really well."
