Conte: “Napoli on a par with Chelsea, but the calendars are killing us”

Regret, disappointment and a hint of satisfaction for having played more than evenly. Antonio Conte is a mixture of emotions. The first feeling to prevail is impotence, Napoli have reached one of the most important moments of the season without too important players. “There are other disasters, we are talking about sport” claims the coach, when he finds himself commenting on what is all in all a failure for the Italian champion team. “Each of us tries to do our best. In this footballing disaster there is a championship and an Italian Super Cup in a year and a half, we need to be careful with words. Playing without thirteen players, many of which are important, and holding our own against Chelsea by playing a European-style match, is the most important thing. Despite the difficulties of this season, where since the beginning of the year we have had serious defections of long-term patients, in the end we are continuing to follow our path and grow.”

rotten in denmark

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Napoli’s real misstep, according to Conte, was against Denmark last week. “Certainly the biggest mistake was the one in Copenhagen. It must be the game of regret for everyone, we all agree. You cannot be ahead by a man and a goal and then concede a penalty and equalize, otherwise we would have already been qualified for the playoffs and there would have been less importance. These are matches that serve to measure us, the level that we expressed despite being reorganized demonstrates that what Napoli are doing is not the result of chance but of careful work, which needs to continue. Maybe by having a a bit of good luck, because I don’t think there is a team in the world that is like us.” Now we need to keep our eyes fixed on the championship and stay high to get back into the top four. “We would have liked to do better and we could have, we would have even deserved it, that’s for sure. We got there, it means that we can only improve. It will be a battle to play the Champions League next year, we have to be good at earning the chance to be there again.”

let’s start again

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The defeat and elimination do not undermine the good things Napoli have put together so far. “We start again from the work we are doing, we are doing a great job. We have a restructured team and we deserved to win against Chelsea, a team that won the Club World Cup and which has important players. We start again with serious and in-depth analyzes of the work we are carrying out, the rest is all talk.” Finally, Conte wanted to vent about the very close matches, which do not help a team in an injury emergency but, on the contrary, risk worsening the situation. “I have energy, we have to play in two and a half days. It’s hard to understand who makes the calendars and who puts in three games in seven days. I’d like whoever is the phenomenon who makes the calendars. We play on Sunday, then now at 9pm and then Saturday at 6pm. Then they talk about injuries and many other things, but then they don’t give a damn about it.”