Conte: Facts matter, big obstacles overcome, vital win tonight | OneFootball

Napoli returns to winning ways after almost a month. They do so against the new Atalanta led by Palladino, thanks to the much-anticipated Neres and Lang, both starting and deciding the match, repaying Antonio Conte’s trust. The coach from Lecce spoke at the post-match press conference, commenting on tonight’s great victory.

Napoli-Atalanta, Antonio Conte’s Words in the Press Conference

Antonio Conte’s words in the press conference, at the end of Napoli-Atalanta 3-1.

On the importance of the break days

“I am someone who lets the facts speak for themselves, a lot of talk doesn’t drive me crazy and often I find myself caught up in this chatter. But that’s part of it and I accept it; when you do this job, you know you’re subject to a lot of judgments and these situations. In the end, what matters to me is the reality of the facts: tonight we won a tough match against an excellent team, Atalanta has been playing in the Champions League for years, they won the Europa League. For us, it’s an important victory, there was electricity and positive energy today at the Maradona, and this involved everyone a bit. It was an important first half from every point of view, in the second half that goal made us a bit anxious, we tried to keep the same intensity as in the first half. The guys did very well, I liked everything I saw, we must continue knowing that this electricity that must be there—last year it led us to do something extraordinary. No one should forget: unity and compactness help overcome obstacles. There are big obstacles: Anguissa’s injury was a tremendous blow, along with those of De Bruyne and Lukaku. And also Gilmour’s, whose recovery time we don’t know. Today we changed the system, but it’s not like you change it just for fun: the guys did well in recent days to try and try again situations that we then saw on the pitch.”

On the choice of formation and the conditions of Hojlund and Rrahmani

“Both Hojlund and Rrahmani were substitutions because I saw them a bit fatigued and so I preferred to change, also because everyone needs to be involved and everyone must feel involved. Five months have passed, we need everyone. I’m happy with Beulema who put in a good performance, Lang had his first start at the Maradona… Surely we can grow and we all must continue to do so. Until now, I hadn’t given Mazzocchi even a second of playing time. Everyone must feel involved, including the two youngsters Vergara and Ambrosino, because we need everyone in this moment of difficulty and emergency. Often and willingly, people forget about the problems we have faced, some important situations are overshadowed, because it’s the players who go on the pitch, and if the players aren’t there you have to find solutions and alternatives. It’s not easy, we are doing without five players. The correct evaluation must be made, let’s not forget, otherwise they always say ‘Conte complains, cries’, I know everything. But I don’t wear masks like many people, this is how you see me and this is how the players see me, with whom I have a very strong relationship, we are very close. They know very well that they have a real person in front of them: I don’t say X and think Z or another letter. I repeat, today congratulations to the guys because we all won, we needed this victory. Now let’s try to recover because we have a match in 52 hours.”

On the condition of the team

“I didn’t need to make peace with myself. I repeat, I am a very straightforward person, I am as you see me. Don’t forget that after Bologna, perhaps the thing that mattered most to me was that I took all the responsibility. I spoke about my responsibility, that very likely I wasn’t able to get the best out of some of the guys. When I speak, I always take responsibility, because we know very well that we depend on the result, performance is always judged by that. These have been two weeks of reflection. I know I have a straightforward, serious, honest group, it couldn’t be otherwise after what we saw last year. No one will be able to ruin this relationship I have with the guys: it was, is, and will be so regardless. We move forward knowing that there will be a lot of hard work: we’ll play every three days and we are not many.”

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