Napoli, Antonio Conte reunites with Jose Mourinho: "It will be a pleasure"

Napoli coach Antonio Conte spoke to the microphones of Sky Sport on the eve of the challenge of the sixth day of the Champions League “championship” against José Mourinho’s Benfica: “The two defeats in the Champions League were different, against City we were down 10 after a few minutes. Against Eindhoven it was a bad defeat. The Benfica stadium is hot, we come from a good moment. We played Sunday night, yesterday they recovered, and today we prepared the game. Tomorrow we will need an intense, tough match and we will need a lot of energy. Mourinho? It is always a pleasure to meet him, we are talking about a winning coach who needs no introduction.”

“It is a moment where the players are showing a great sense of responsibility and if there is a small problem you have to overcome it. The guys have given full availability, those from the last game are all there – he continued, then returning to Sunday’s game -. Against Juve it was a game played at an intense pace, we have been working on this concept for a while. We try to press intensely, I tell the guys that by running forward we defend better. Tomorrow we have to fight for every inch of the field, we have to recover our energy and play an intense game. Benfica is a very good team and we know the difficulties of this pitch. We have to leave the field without recriminations.”

Then, in the press conference, he returned to talk about Mourinho: “We are talking about a great coach, his resume speaks very clearly, I am happy to meet and greet him. I don’t have to explain who Mourinho is. The match is as important as all the others are, surely there will be maximum concentration, there is to recover energy. We know that Benfica is a very good team and that the stadium is very hot. We come with our minds clear of bad thoughts. The absences? I think there are objective aspects under everyone’s eyes. They will want to win at all costs but we also need to score points, I hope it will be a good game. In a time of objective difficulty like the one that happened to us I think the sense of responsibility has grown in all of us. So many new players have understood so many dynamics and started to play more. The growth that the boys had was of great responsibility and it was not to be taken for granted.”

Conclusion on the level of Italian soccer and the defeat in Eindhoven: “At the tactical level the Italian league has become very European, the distance remains on the level of the composition of the roses and the level of the players. That will be difficult to equalize, from a tactical point of view Italy has Europeanized. In Eindhoven it was not a good game and we cannot forget it. We have to try to improve with work trying to increase the merits. However, we cannot erase the past from defeats so we learn. We must leave the field without recriminations.”