The true misunderstood genius
Antonio Conte has done it again. Napoli have won their fourth Scudetto and the Italian manager has won his third Serie A title with 3 different sides. However, this one isn’t like the rest - in fact, it isn’t crazy to say that this is Conte’s magnum opus. His greatest achievement in his long, illustrious career and a moment that has cemented him as one of the greatest league managers of the 21st century.
Give Conte 11 half-decent players and no European football and you are pretty much guaranteed a title charge at this rate. Napoli finished 10th last season and lost easily their best 2 players across the season - and yet it didn’t matter. Their summer was pretty unremarkable to most people who cared enough to still take note of Napoli - and yet it didn’t matter. Mctominay, Gilmour and Lukaku - three players who Premier League fans were happy to name as unremarkable and uninspiring, they were Napoli’s most notable signings - and yet it didn’t matter.
Conte ripped up his textbook and tried something new. He doesn’t need superstars - he never has. Give him a squad of 15 or so players who are willing to run for him and die for him and let him get to work. 5 at the back is now yesterday’s news for the Italian - everyone expected him to play it like he’s played it everywhere else he’s been and yet he didn’t. 4-3-3 was the formation used from day 1 and Napoli didn’t look back from there. Conte has a remarkable way of elevating players commonly seen as average at the time and using a system tailored to their unique strengths to create something special. Scott Mcotminay joins a list of Victor Moses, Christian Eriksen, Kwado Asamoah and many others as the latest recipient of Conte’s immense man-management talents.
Don’t let a pretty abysmal managerial spell at Spurs fool you into thinking that Conte isn’t an incredible manager. Even with all his annoying tendencies to complain about absolutely anything and everything, there comes a point where you just have to accept that it’s a part of him and as an owner you’re just going to have to sacrifice your sanity for a few years, for a chance to win some major silverware.
Sustainable? No. Impressive and absolutely enthralling to watch? Yes.
Conte and winning is like bread and butter. He’s now proven he can adapt and evolve with the times in order to produce the goods with a side that doesn’t have any world-class players. They might not be an overall better team than Inter Milan but who cares because they’ve beaten them to the Serie A when many people didn’t think it was possible. Scott Mctominay has gone from a lost boy at Old Trafford to a bonafide Naples legend and Serie A MVP, who will now be mentioned in the same breaths as the great Diego Maradona.
Conte made that possible.
Like Pep Guardiola, Sir Alex Ferguson and Johan Cruyff - Conte is a footballing genius in his own right. Whether you like his antics or not, you have to accept the facts - what we’re witnessing is special and will leave the Italian as a legend of the game when it’s all said and done. It might not be the prettiest and he might cause a decent amount of damage along the way, but let it be known that Conte is one of the best to ever do it. I don’t think there’s any other manager in world football that could’ve won the Scudetto with this Napoli team and that’s the highest praise I can give the former Italian head coach.
These Napoli players adore him and he adores them. It will all probably come tumbling down in the next 12 months in true Conte fashion but a lot of people will argue that the climaxes of the Antonio Conte rollercoaster are with the drops.
