Antonio Conte taking a lesson from Pep Guardiola with his Napoli team

Antonio Conte spoke on the eve of Napoli&#8217s Champions League season opener, scheduled for Thursday at the home of Guardiola&#8220s Manchester City: “It will be a difficult game, we are going to play at the home of a team that in recent years has won everything there is to win. We are talking about a top club with a top coach”.

“We come here with great humility and a desire to see where we stand. We are working, however, we want to see if we are growing and making progress. Certainly tomorrow we start from a very difficult mountain to climb however we also have the desire to measure ourselves and to learn, as students, also from the masters. And City as well as other top clubs are masters in this competition. History and blazon say so. It&#8217s always a great thrill to be back in the Champions League, the most important European competition. It makes you come back to fantastic stadiums like this one”.

“The greatest satisfaction, however, is that in Naples I am trying to expand football knowledge. We have to try to always play the players we think are the best, not sacrifice someone because of forms. This step I started to do last year, before I was very firm on 3-5-2, 3-4-3. With De Bruyne we tried to find a right formula to get the best players to play”.

“The season is long, there&#8217s the possibility to alternate. In this soccer the defensive phase is done differently and in the offensive phase you change, this is the’evolution. We can also do the 4-3-3, there are Lang, Neres, Elmas… the latter can also do the midfield inside, not only the outside. There’s eagerness on my part and on the part of the players. Last year we had to change out of necessity and I always had great responses. I ask that we continue to be courageous and understand the gap that there&#8217s of distance between us and a battleship like them”.