🚨 De Laurentiis-Conte: Napoli exit announced, poison in squad | OneFootball

Antonio Conte, together with Aurelio De Laurentiis, announced his departure from Napoli at the post-match press conference.

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"I told the president a month ago, I wasn’t able to bring Napoli together the way I wanted. Coming here, I thought I was accepting a situation where I could enjoy myself more in terms of results," Conte says, among other things. Below are all the statements.

🔺 First question, on the aftermath of Bologna-Napoli, ADL speaks

ADL - "Anyone can go through a moment of great disappointment and so Conte probably thought at that moment, ‘maybe this is a place that expects too much from me, I’m very good but I can’t perform miracles.’ I begged him to take a sabbatical week and I told him, ‘stay calm and get some rest.’ Then I also remember that a month ago he called me and said, ‘Can we meet? Certainly. Dear Aurelio, you know we’re friends, but cycles can also end early.’ I replied, ‘this is your home, but if you no longer feel at ease with a certain way of approaching the league that Napoli forces you into, because we’re not PSG or Real Madrid, and we have to respect certain budgets. Then of course the Italian league isn’t all that extraordinary and the level has dropped a lot. Then there are the federal issues, refereeing issues, agents, and I don’t understand why the Government doesn’t put a stop to it, then the Sports Minister gets involved and then Giorgetti, who I don’t know how much he even cares about Italian football".

🔺 Conte also responds on the aftermath of Bologna-Napoli

CONTE - "After Bologna, what I felt were situations I didn’t like, and even there you need guts to say things as they are. I have never had an anonymous season and I never will. I was ready to step aside too; clearly some signings didn’t click with the old group and some very difficult dynamics had developed that it was right to call out. I was lucky enough to meet a group with whom we spoke clearly, we cleared the air, telling each other that we had to row in the same boat against the wind, and we started again. A month ago I called the president, I didn’t want to know anything, and I told him, ‘by virtue of the friendship we have, I feel that my journey here is about to end.’ The decision had been made on my part. At Napoli I failed in one thing: I wasn’t able to bring Napoli together, and if you can’t do that it becomes difficult to fight against the other teams. I saw a lot of poison, and those who spread it are failures. Napoli does not need failures, people who need a like. It needs serious people who genuinely care about the team, just like the fans who pay for a ticket; instead, these people should stay away because they are toxic. I failed from that point of view and I understood that I would never be able to unite the environment. For me that was fundamental, so I threw in the towel. I’m taking responsibility, as I always have. On my side there is satisfaction, prestige and the honor of having coached Napoli: I thank the president for this opportunity, I lived it with the passion I like. The Napoli fans understood me and that’s the most important thing".

💥 ADL and Conte "argue" over Inter’s Scudetto

ADL - "Not having total unity is something typically Italian, not Neapolitan. Just remember Ancelotti, let them talk. Without the injury you would have won the league again"

CONTE: "I don’t agree, Inter deserved the title. We have to acknowledge other people’s victories; if we want respect, we have to give it. The injuries brought us closer together and we discovered new boys. They were two fantastic years. I hope that in the future this can push the failures to stop always trying to tear Napoli apart, just to get a like or go on television. Napoli doesn’t need failures, it can compete at a high level if it stays united. I found a traumatized group after the 10th-place finish, and I know what I had to do to get them back on track psychologically. I hope that next year Napoli continues to have that ambition. I thank the president because it was a wonderful experience"

❌ Conte gets to the point and makes the departure official

CONTE: "The president didn’t push me to do anything, it was my decision. He told me, ‘if you change your mind, this is your home.’ A great friendship will remain, and with the president Napoli is in safe hands"  

👀 What does the future hold? There is talk of the national team...

CONTE: "People are talking. I remember what I said about the national team, namely that among the list of candidates I would also include Conte. Today there still isn’t a federation president, Guardiola’s name has also been mentioned, but is the federation ready to have a top coach? Having one means burdens as well as honors. At the moment there is nothing, I don’t know if there will be in the future. If you want a top coach, my advice is Guardiola, but are there enough funds?"

👀 What happens now with Napoli on the bench?

ADL: "First of all, calm down. When Conte confirms to me that the die is cast, we’ll make our move and see what is best for Napoli. I’d like to point out that we have around thirty capable players, so with very few additions the team will be competitive. The problem is not so much what Napoli will do, but how to rebuild Italian football. The refereeing problem is no small issue, the problem between the League and the Federation is no small issue. And it could even be decided that the League should do as in England and break away from the federation itself. The fact that Lotito at the time also controlled the Serie B League votes, he came up with this damned parachute payment: but why do we have to run one league one way and another another way? In my opinion it doesn’t work, because if you come with a very physical group that risks breaking my players’ bones, that’s not okay with me. If you come up to Serie A from Serie B and think you can compete with 15 million, you’re just a nuisance. Because in the end you even lose that one match against them, and in my opinion that’s wrong. Look at England: the level is high, Arsenal, who were 7th and 8th for years, became first this year, and there are even teams from small cities that have won the league. Why? Because they spend millions of pounds on players. Arsenal won the league in 2003, decided to change stadium and inaugurated it in 2006: from 35,000 seats they went to 60,000 seats, with the English government giving them one and a half billion pounds to build the stadium. It had cost 320 million pounds, so when people here talk about billions for Italian stadiums I can’t help but laugh. They also got 1.5 million for housing use in central London. Arteta took three or four years and succeeded because he had this nest egg built up over the years"  

❗ How do you judge this experience compared to your expectations?

CONTE: "Coming to Napoli, I thought I was accepting a situation where I could enjoy myself more in terms of results. I realized that who I am changes ambitions, standards, expectations. I arrived after a 10th-place finish and people started saying that, since we weren’t playing in Europe, I had to win the title. I didn’t hear that said about the others. Instead of enjoying it more, I kept the pressure turned up to the max to keep the team at a high level; it took a lot of energy out of me, but I’m happy with what was done in these two years. I think something important was achieved, something historic like in Maradona’s time, and I hope Napoli can repeat two-year spells like these".

🔚 The best day and the worst day?

CONTE: "The best was the Scudetto: when we celebrated on the pitch and when we did it together with the fans, it was something incredible. I’ve won things in my career, but they were never celebrated in this way and it’s something I’ll always carry in my heart. That’s why I say Napoli needs unity. The worst moment was definitely Bologna, because for a person who manages a group, seeing that after a few months everything can fall apart was not nice. There were two paths: either pretend nothing was wrong and the ship would have sunk, or face the problem as we did, lifting a Supercoppa and finishing in second place. I didn’t expect such a complex season; making it through was a source of pride for the whole team. Napoli must be happy with what we did".

🤑 Offer from the Americans

ADL - "The Americans made me an offer of 900 million, then after Covid the Arabs came forward with 3.5 billion for Napoli and Filmauro and I replied, ‘what do I do now, retire?’. The problem isn’t money, but whether a successor can manage with heart as well. You may not be a fan, but in a football club there are so many unpredictable factors that you have to follow it with love, otherwise you’ll tell everyone to get lost. Just think about having to fight with this city’s mayors who, after two league titles, still give me the stadium the day before the match and the day after so I can clean it for them. How can you think such a thing? Only someone with a strong character like mine can sustain the idea of a Napoli football club. When I arrived, the mayor was a friend of my mother’s and I let it slide; we were coming off a bankruptcy and we started a journey where I knew nothing about football. Then the one after that wouldn’t let me build an alternative stadium to the Maradona, Kuwait is interested in reclaiming land and handing it over to me for my own 70,000-seat stadium. If the mayor lets me do it now" .

❗ The number of candidates for the bench at the moment?

ADL - "Let’s also see what the others do tonight, because depending on what happens they’ll move in one direction or another. Quite a few of us are shuffling the cards, and whoever doesn’t make the Champions League will also be more reluctant to spend money. We have players who could be perfectly suited for a coach with different characteristics".

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.