Napoli market, Antonio Conte in the balance: a former Neapolitan has the solution

The rumors about Antonio Conte’s future continue to hold sway in the circles close to Napoli: between the National team hypothesis and the idea of a new year’s stop after the two-year Parthenopean period, there are many who imagine new scenarios on the bench of the club that this season won the Italian Super Cup but also ceded the scepter of Italian champion to Inter.

Rather than a new name, however, there are those who plead the cause of a return to Naples, that of Maurizio Sarri. Stefan Schwoch, who scored 32 goals in a total of 66 appearances with the Campania club’s jersey between January 1999 and June 2000, has no doubts that the current Lazio coach, who already knows the Napoli environment well, could pick up Conte’s baton.

“If Conte were to leave, I would choose Sarri,” said the second most prolific goalscorer in the history of Serie B, in an interview with Radio CRC during the ‘Calciomania’ program. He knows the environment and the president well, and in Naples he left a beautiful memory, making them play the best soccer.”

If he could, however, Schwoch would continue with Conte on the bench: “Of good matches he has made few, it is true, but his is a bandwagon of winners on which periodically everyone gets on. In the end the one who wins is right, and when you get used to it you want to continue. The coach from Lecce is one of those who allows you to win.”

Curiously enough, Conte and Sarri have alternated on two other benches: at Arezzo, in the 2006-2007 season, Conte was exonerated with the season in progress, leaving Sarri to take over, before returning at the end of the season in place of the Tuscan coach. At Chelsea, on the other hand, the Salento coach left in the summer of 2018 after a Premier League win in his first year and an FA Cup in his second, and the Blues relied for the following season on Sarri himself who, having arrived from Napoli in the 2018-2019 season, won the Europa League with the London club.