Antonio Conte: "One day i will become juventus coach and.."

12 reasons to respect Antonio Conte

1. From 7th Placed Squad to Scudetto Trophy

All the Juventus fans painfully recall how their favourite team spent an year in Italy's lower division and how their team paid the bitter consequences of relegation.

After returning to seria a juve were struggling to gain their glory back and nothing seemed to resolve the situation. The change of players and coaches didn't bring any significant results and for 6 years, little by little, Juve were turning into a mid-table team.  They finished 7th for two consecutive years and when Antonio Conte's appointment was announced no one was sure if this decision was right as previous case with inexperienced coach Ciro Ferrara has failed to succeed.

Antonio conte's  season started off well as Juve defeated parma 4-1 in their first match. As the season went on juve kept climbing up the table and Juve supporters also started to have high hopes for the future. The team was playing a spectacular football, something that hadn't been seen for former Delle alpi's side for 10 years or so, team's attitude was offensive, with pressing and creative football.

Juventus went unbeaten for the entire season, the first team to go the season unbeaten in the current 38-game format. Antonio Conte led the team to trophy and became the champions of Italy for 30th time. Now you may wonder if there are a lot more difficult things in football then making a seventh placed team champion in your very first year..

2. Philosophy Of Game

So what was the real change Conte brought to the team?

First of all you have to go back and remember what football juve was proposing in past seasons, the only way to start an attack was just to kick the ball to the direction of opposite team, without any ideas. you would often see juve player stuck in the thought for many seconds wondering what to do with the ball. There was no plan, no idea, every player was on their own and the only hope to score a goal was based on long ball strategy or on a useless cross just from anywhere.

After the arrival of Conte the most noticeable thing was how juve started to invent attacking plays. Every attack starts with buffon, no one has the right to kick off the ball just to get rid off it.  Keeper never kicks the ball to the center but instead passes to defenders, defenders try to exchange few passes between each other as they all try to move to the central part of the field to move defensive line up and gain territorial superiority on the field.

While defenders posses the ball there are different options to continue  building up a attacking play:

1. defenders Pass to a winger who continues his play to a forward who comes deep into midfield
2. defenders pass directly through the middle to a forward who has opposite team defender following him. this movement allows another forward or a midfielder to get into the open space left behind a defender
3. Pirlo
4. Bonucci, who often tries to make a through ball for the forwards

It seems to be nothing special but this is why Conte's team is so strong. If opposing team will try to neutralize any of these options, then it automatically will risk something. for example if opposite team's  forwards try to press juve defenders high on the field then their whole team and defensive line should also move up, if this happens pirlo and bonucci will have better possibility to make a through ball considering their nice passing abilities.

Every player knows what he is doing and why he is doing it,  everything is well planed and extremely well organized.

In conte's football there's less importance to individuals and to their individual skills, of course having a very special player like pirlo offers higher variety of  tactical options but generally juventus rarely decide outcome of a match thanks to special skills of any of it's player.

3. Tactical Flexibility 

In July 2006 Conte was appointed as coach of seria B team Arezzo, however, after a series of disappointing results, he was sacked.

After few months he was reinstated to the Arezzo head coaching position, as his predecessor failed to gain any significant improvement. In his second time at Arezzo he led the team to five consecutive wins in a row, and 19 points in 7 matches.  During this period Conte invented 4-2-4 formation making his team extremely offensive, as conte declared lately he switched to this formation because his team had to win as many matches as possible to avoid relegation. Conte's 4-2-4 allowed the Tuscan side to fill the gap from the last safe spot, his team however did not manage to avoid relegation, and Arezzo dropped into seria C on the final matchday, only one point behind Spezia..   it worth mentioning that Spezzia was playing juventus and conte hoped that his ex-team would make him a gift by not loosing to spezzia but it didn't happen and conte was left disappointed.

Arezzo didn't manage to avoid relegation but conte's 4-2-4 didn't stay unnoticed as he was appointed by Bari  for the second half of their championship campaign. He did very well, turning Bari's 2007–08 season around from relegation-threatened to a comfortable midtable position. In the following season, Bari were crowned Serie B champions with conte using 4-2-4.
Conte also successfully led Siena to promotion from B to A too.

When Antonio Conte was Appointed as the head coach of juventus, many thought that conte's 4-2-4 wouldn't be suitable for seria A and that he would get massacred with this tactics.
Juve Started season with 4-2-4 but lately switched to 4-3-3 because of lack of suitable players to play as wing forwards.  4-3-3 then also got replaced with 3-5-2, since then Conte never retuned to his beloved 4-2-4 but he often declares that basic aspects of his 3-5-2 is based on many details of 4-2-4.

Sometimes Conte gets criticized for persisting on 3-5-2 too often, but in reality conte's 3-5-2 is the most flexible tactics that can be used, this formation undergoes changes many times per game, it instantly turns into 5-3-2 when defending and 3-3-4 while attacking. Conte thinks that 3-3-4 is the most offensive tactics he can use.

this is how conte's team plays in different matches.
1. Normal Attitude
2. Defensive Attitude
3. Super Offensive Attitude 3-3-4.  Asamoah and Lichsteiner line up as wing forwards, Chiellini and Barzagli play as wingers.

4. 101% Juventino. “one day i'll be juventus coach and..”

  Antonio conte as a player was captain of juventus for many years. He was not exceptionally tallanted and multi-skilled player but he was so hard working that first, he become player of juventus and to played alongside with great champions and then even became captain of them.

Since childhood conte has been great fan of juventus, he's father was also juventino and he even founded a local team ispired by Turin giants - "Juventina lecce"

When conte was still a debutant coach in arezzo, he was asked about hard times of juventus that was relegated to seria b, then conte responded: "one day i will become coach of juventus and i will lead them to championship again"

After 6 years conte was appointed as juventus coach and in his first season triumphantly won championship.

5. Bonucci 

Through post calciopoli years juventus players were constantly criticized, one of these players is Leonardo bonucci. He was signed on a four-year contract for a total of € 15 Million, however his performances left much to be desired as he was prawn to many defensive mistakes, as a result bonucci was moved to bench.

After Conte's arrival bonucci was back to starting line up but his performances didn't seem to have improved as he kept making mistakes -  nevertheless conte persisted with bonucci and little by little bonucci turned into different player.

Bonucci is a middle height defender with normal physical build-up with no apparent physical power, he can be easily dribbled by most of technical players but the thing that sets him apart from other defenders is his technical and passing abilities.  Conte made use of these skills like no one did before. Bonucci turned into one of the key players of the team, he is often called pirlo of defense because he starts 60% of teams attacks and distributes balls from one part of the field to another.

For fans bonucci was one of the most hated players of the team but after his performances with conte he instantly gained love of "tifosi", now they love and respect him,  he even watches juventus games  with them sometimes when he is injured or disqualified

6. Squad

Achievement of antonio conte are even bigger when you think of quality of juventus players. There are only 2 world class players in team; Buffon & Pirlo, others are middle class or young players that haven't proved anything yet. You would often see players like Giaccherini, Peluso, Padoin, Marrone De Ceglie etc in starting line up but quality of team's performance doesn't change.

Conte often gets Criticized for persisting on these players too much, but doing so conte encourages these players to show what they worth, eventually these players become integral part of the team, they don't whine when they are on bench and can can play well without much fear  when they are called up.

Conte often declares "if you want to earn respect, you should show respect"

Avarage  Cost of juventus players is 15 million dollars

7. Defense

In Italy Conte is considered to be most attacking football manager, generally saying - more attacking minded teams concede more goals, but this is not the case for juve

After conte's appointment juventus conceded less goals in Italian championship that also turned out to be the best result among other top Europian leagues too.

Conte's defense is always super organized and it respects one key aspect of ideal defense. it is italian!

Gigi Buffon, Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini represent on of the hardest defenses to beat in Europe

 

8. Midfield

Many consider  juventus midfield as the best part of the team, to qualify the needs for playing in juventus midfield a player must have equal abilities to attack and defend; Marchisio, Vidal and Pirlo are these kind of players

The kye tactics of conte's midfield include constant insertion of midfielders into open space created by forwards. this kind of play made Claudio Marchisio even stronger player, his somehow chaotic talent finally got into shape and marchisio became one of the strongest midfielders in the world. Marchiso and Vidal are same type of players and they can be considered as one thing.

Everyone knows who andrea pirlo is, but when he was set to move from Milan to Juve for free many considered him as already finished player, herewith pirlo struggled with constant injuries. juventus wouldn't be able to get any good from taking 32 years old midfielder into their team.

Antonio conte made Pirlo the main player of the squad, he commands play of juventus and general playing tempo is based on pirlo's heart beat rate.

Conte reinvented whole team to fit pirlo and recreated pirlo to fit whole team, as a result Pirlo played best season of his career under conte's management. With conte or without him, pirlo's qualities are undoubtedly, but conte definitely helped Andrea to somehow prolong his already mythical career into something better
  

9. Attack

Juventus attack doesn't consist of super-class player, however Juve is one of the most prolific teams in Europe. Strikers are often criticized for not scoring as much goals as it is expected from them, but conte always defends them, saying that it's only the matter of his tactics where forwards constantly do a hard job playing too far away from goal creating open space for insertion of midfielders

This is the reason you will hardly find juventus strikers among top scorer list of any tournament but instead, while scrolling the list you will bump into the likes of Marchisio, Vidal, Pogba...  

This is all part of the tactics.

10. Del Piero

Alesandro Del Piero is probably the biggest name in history of Juventus, he was a pure class player able to decide the outcome of any match with a single move. Fans adored Del Piero and when Del Piero was growing older to face more bench time, they stood by him always cheering his name on the stadium and when del piero was called up he never disappointed scoring various decisive goals to lead Juventus to so much waited Scudetto trophy.

Time passes for everyone, so it does for Del Piero, although his performances were still  high class and he was still a decisive player Juventus had to think to learn winning without him.

In fact Juventus was trying to find replacement of Del Piero for some years, but lack of positive  results of team didn't allow juventus to release it's beloved leader.  Juve were Struggling to win back leadership in Italy and at some point it seemed that Capitano would have to finish his career without rising up italian trophy again, but the arrival of Conte made a beautifull end of story to be possible.  Del Pero left juventus as champion after winning nothing for 6 years, he rose Italian trophy for the last time and made a beautiful cover for the history chapter "Del Piero & Juventus"

Conte always respected Del Piero, he always praised him, declared many times that his the best player in his squad, conte played him many times nevertheless he might have though to play other players. Del Piero played every match that had any symbolism with Alex, he played in starting line-up in the first match of the season on the new stadium, conte never acted like pedant Coach uselessly following his rules ignoring Del Piero.  
Del piero left juventus, but no one though that the reason was Conte as he beautifully managed the sensitive situation..

 

11. Statistics

In football what counts the most are the results, Antonio Conte would be just a normal coach with just a attractive style of play if it wasn't also backed up by results he achieves.

Conte was a manager of two seria B teams, Siena & Bari leading both of them in seria A. He also had quite good experience with Arezzo that we've mentioned earlier in this article and he also trained Atalanta which was experiencing crisis that conte couldn't help to resolve so he resigned after several games.

In his first year with juventus he won Italian championship, was unbeatable for 49 consecutive games, went to the final of Italian Cup and won Italian super-cup.

Juventus ended 2012 with a record 94 points. The club’s previous best points tally in a solar year belongs to Fabio Capello’s Old Lady side when they collected 93 in 2005.

12. Relationship with "Senators"

Conte said many times the the first thing he did when he was appointed as Juventus coach was to call 3 leader players at juventus, Buffon, Del Piero, Pirlo. 

Pirlo: Already in June, I knew we would win

Do you remember the first words with Conte? 

“I was in the National Team, he has just signed his contract. He called me to introduce himself and surprise me: we still had to do the holidays and he was already loaded. It was a nice call. “ 

Conte was a pleasant surprise? 

“He’s a great coach. I’ve had them many, but none quite so meticulous in his work and good at explaining things. From the tactical point of view and teaching is even better than Ancelotti and Lippi, who also have many qualities. Prepares well the games, we study the videos of opponents 3-4 times a week and when we go on the field hardly something can be surprising. Conte is a talent on the bench. “

Buffon says that Conte often asks these players to support him and train hard with all professionalism they have to show an  example to others. When other players see legends like pirlo, buffon and del piero giving their best they also start  feel more responsibility towards their team.

As said by buffon in most important parts of seasons Conte often asks some of leader players to make a speech for the squad to motivate other players.

 

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 Conte Haven't yet reached the success that would bring him at the same level as Capello, Lippi or Trapattoni but he has bright future ahead. Time will show the rest..