Napoli, Antonio Conte: “In history, those who win remain.”
Napoli, Antonio Conte: "In history remains whoever wins"
Antonio Conte is preparing for a new adventure, on the Napoli bench, and his trademark remains the same. "I grew up in the middle of the road. The road leads you to encounter difficulties right away and there's no one to help you solve them. You have to know that you have to fend for yourself and that you cannot rely on anything or anyone”.
Soì the coach had spoken before the deal with Aurelio De Laurentiis’ club materialized, in an interview published now on the Federcalcio’s digital platform, VivoAzzurroTV, in which he traces his competitive journey, including and especially in the national team. From Arrigo Sacchi’s phone call when he included him in the group for the US94 World Cup, to the 2000 European Championships with Dino Zoff and the 2016 European Championships on the bench as technical commissioner.
"Towards Sacchi, I have great esteem and admiration – the words of Conte -. He transmitted his passion for soccer, I liked this desire to update and to be in front of others. A great worker, he left nothing to chance. These are all things I tried to make my own. An obsessed person, but for me obsession in soccer è a positive thing".
Conte recalls the final with Brazil lost on penalties, in Pasadena. "When you get to have these opportunities; you have to know that it might not happen again; and instead when you è young you don’t think about it. I thought we lost, but it will happen another time,” he recounts, “Instead, when you play finals like that with clubs or in the national team you have to know that it might be the only one of your life and therefore you have to be strong and determined to go down in history because, let's be clear, in history we are left with the people who win. That was the first heavy defeat, the kind that burns on the skin. Brazil è remained in history, so many people don't remember Italy's second place.
Then the unexpected phone call from President Tavecchio to offer him the Azzurri bench."Tavecchio was very convinced and I think that perseverance of his, that determination to want me in the national team, that desire to achieve that marriage affected me a lot", he adds, stressing then that "the national team needs its spaces, I think that the national teams that win in the end are those that manage to build a team".
There remains the memory of the farewell conference in Montpellier, at the end of the 2016 European Championship, and his tears: “&It was difficult to detach myself from those players, but from the whole environment. A real family had been created – Conte’s reconstruction – and that had helped us overcome the fact that we were not a very strong national team, but the desire to prove that we were not inferior to others had balanced things out. Before the European Championships, in January, I had expressed to the president my desire to return to coaching a club, in April then I had signed with Chelsea”.
“I am convinced that if I had not signed that contract and had to decide at that time, I would never, ever have left that group. Too strong a relationship had been created between us and I wouldn’t have felt like it. In the end però we all have a path in life,” Conte concluded, “I left Juventus and met the national team that gave me great emotions, then I went to England and won the Premier League and FA cup. Let’s say that in all situations there can be regrets, but what è came afterwards è was beautiful and exciting".
