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- Saturday, April 29, 2023 16:00 (GMT+7)
- 16:00 April 29, 2023
The book "Metolo Conte" by author Alessandro Alciato portrays coach Antonio Conte as a workaholic, crazy about winning.
On the morning of May 17, 2014, at Juventus' Vinovo headquarters, everyone was happy. The club won the Scudetto even though the Serie A season had not yet ended. Juventus had a record number of points: 99 points.
The next day, the final game of the season will be at home to Cagliari. Conte wants the team to surpass the 100-point mark, he told his colleagues: “We have to make history, no team has ever won more than 100 points in Italy...”
Attack the players brutally
“Guys, see you in the video room to study the diagram,” Conte began that morning with a phrase he had heard a thousand times in Vinovo. Almost all the players were there when Conte walked in, except for captain Gianluigi Buffon, who had not left the club since Juve were relegated to Serie B. He appeared seconds later, accompanied by general manager Giuseppe Marotta.
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Conte was the captain of Juve, he played 13 seasons for Juve. |
“Sir, please excuse me, the director wants to clarify the bonus issue for the team after winning the Scudetto,” Buffon told Conte. Everything started to fall apart in that 50 square meters. Conte shouted: “You broke me! Broken, understand? And now everyone can get out of here. Get out, I don’t want to see you anymore. Get out, I say!”
The room was silent. It was a courtroom, and Conte was the sole judge before a team whose guilt was unknown.
“But, sir...”
“Shut up Gigi, don't say another word. Don't make me repeat myself. I never expected it from you. Bonus? Think about yourselves, you bastards...”
No one allowed themselves to laugh, even if they wanted to. It would be the worst thing to do, an unforgivable insult. “And now,” Conte shouted. “Everyone on the training pitch, no video. Out. Don’t you understand?”
There was more silence, so that everyone could hear Conte's very low voice, as if he were talking to himself. "Shame," he repeated as he walked out. Shame? For a team that had just won Serie A for the third time in a row?
Indeed, Conte was obsessed with getting over 100 points all week. Many may remember the third consecutive title, but the history books will talk about 102 points, and in his eyes, that is a huge difference.
Buffon was there at the wrong time. Or at the wrong time, as far as Conte was concerned. If Buffon wasn't there with Marotta, Conte would have found another excuse to attack his players. Marotta was the architect of Juve's rebirth, and he turned and walked away in Conte's anger. He knew he shouldn't have stayed.
Conte chose to attack his players to prevent them from succumbing to complacency. As he had done many times in previous seasons. Buffon was always the first target of Conte's anger, because Buffon was the eldest in the team.
“I am fine playing the target role, also because Conte's way of looking at football and thinking is very similar to mine. I will also use certain tricks to make the team perform at its best. We were also teammates at Juve, but at that time I was his first false enemy,” Buffon explained. Juve beat Cagliari 3-0 the following afternoon, reaching their target of 102 points.
Obsessed with work, winning and details
Andrea Pirlo wrote in his autobiography: “If I could go back in time, there is only one thing I would not do: choose to sit next to Buffon at the entrance to the dressing room at the Juventus Arena. It was the most dangerous place in Turin, especially at half-time. Conte came in and, even when we were winning, he threw everything he could find against the wall – and therefore into my corner – plastic bottles, pens, towels… He was never satisfied, there was always a detail that did not suit him.”
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After leaving Tottenham, it is likely that next season, Conte will return to Juve to replace coach Max Allegri. |
“I consider defeat to be a state of absolute death” is Conte’s most used phrase. A phrase repeated hundreds of times, in the dressing room or in front of an audience of journalists. Conte is obsessed with winning, like Jose Mourinho. And from this obsession comes another obsession: to work hard to win.
Conte is a big fan of video. On average, coaches sit in front of a big screen twice a week: once the day after a game, and twice in the 48 hours before the next one. Conte uses video with his players all week long. Industry experts argue that a video session should not exceed 15 minutes. Beyond that, players’ attention spans drop. With Conte, they rarely last less than 30 minutes, and often exceed an hour.
Play, pause, fast forward, slow forward, rewind, rewind. Stop, play. Stop. Play again. Again. Franco Vázquez, the Palermo striker called up by Conte to Italy in 2015, fell asleep during video time. “Does it always go like this?” he asked. He was met with shrugs. After two appearances for Italy, Vázquez moved to Argentina.
Talking to Conte is a complex exercise, because he always observes you, finds out what is hidden in the conversation. Study the person opposite as an opponent, consider the conversation as a match, to find the appropriate defense, attack, counterattack in the conversation. Conte is obsessed with details, sometimes tends to look for enemies even when they do not exist.
Conte checks every semicolon in his interview. It is a sign of someone who is very vulnerable. But it can also be said that Conte believes that communication is not only about conveying ideas and thoughts, but also about conveying a certain kind of image.
On September 1, 2014, in Rome, TV beauty Ludovica Caramis got married. The groom was Mattia Destro, a striker for AS Roma. Everything, the wedding ceremony in the church, the wedding reception in the restaurant, was wrapped up in just one day. Some people said that, during the moment of swearing in the church, the groom smiled half-heartedly when he thought of the national team coach.
Destro could only spend one wedding night at home. At 5am the next morning, he had to get up and drive to the national team training camp at Coverciano. He was part of the 27-man squad for the friendly against the Netherlands on September 4, and the Euro qualifier against Norway five days later.
Those were Conte’s first games as Italy coach. Destro was free to marry, except for the honeymoon. He knew that when the sheets were still rumpled, he had to leave, which was the reason for the half-smile. Conte never made any special privileges or exceptions.
A Conte associate later explained that if Destro had been scheduled to get married after the games with the Netherlands and Norway, and not before, he would not have been called up by Conte to the national team. Strange?
“Conte has his own way of thinking. If Destro gets married, he will be completely focused on the national team. But when he hasn’t finished the wedding ceremony, he will go to the national team with worries. Subconsciously, he will think more about the wedding guests than his opponents. Not concentrating when preparing for a match, not being clear-headed when on the pitch, and making mistakes. Not giving everything to what he is doing is one of the sins that Conte finds hard to forgive. Prevention is better than cure.”
Chinh Phong
Conte Juventus Juventus Mourinho Antonio Conte Tottenham Buffon Italy
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