The SSC Naples, tenth of the pre -season, could become champions in series A. This is also due to the work of two men, a trainer, a striker, and their unusual connection.
Jürgen Kohler, 59, did not forget the talks in the hotel even after 30 years. On the evenings before the games, the final training was behind them, the next game in front of them, Kohler sometimes had longer discussions with a young Italian. As a footballer of Juventus Turin, they shared a hotel room: Kohler, the world champion in 1990, a defender, nickname: Panzer, and Antonio Conte, a midfielder for whom football did not consist of excessors.
Once, Kohler said it “Zeit Online”, Conte asked him how he imagined life after his career as a footballer. Kohler didn’t have an answer. So Conte replied. He said: “Panzer, I’m becoming a coach.”
Conte did not become a trainer, he was only in the mid -twenties. He played for a decade, always for Juve, sometimes also for Italy’s national team. He secured the creative people, ran for Zinédine Zidane and Alessandro del Piero, he conducted and grown, that was his job. Then he solved his promise.
“Fire flowed through his veins”
The coach has been Conte, 55, for twenty years, he was responsible for Italy’s national team, he worked in Serie A for Juventus or Inter Milan and in the Premier League at the FC Chelsea and Tottenham. He was often successful – only with the “Track“It did not go. This is why it may never be lacking on offers. Clubs often reported that had not only missed their goals once.
It was the same with Juve: When Conte was introduced in 2011, the club, which more titles had won than any other club in Italy, was waiting for a championship title for eight years. Conte stayed for three years, the master was always called Juventus. He invented “BBC”, the defense bulwark consisting of Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini. He used Andrea Pirlo so that he could play his passports in peace. And always hit someone in the front.
Years later, the playmaker Pirlo, who had also switched to Juve with Conte, was asked how this development was possible. He started with Conte’s inaugural speech. “Fire flowed through his veins, he twitched like a Viper”said Pirlo. “When Conte speaks, his words fall. They tear the doors of your brain.”
Conte could write history
For three quarters of a year, Conte has been training SSC Naples, champion in the 2022/23 season, tenth a year later. He could become a master: Three game days before the end of the season is Naples first, with a three -point lead over pursuer Inter Milan. For Conte it would be the fifth championship as a coach in Italy, others have already managed to do that. But with three different clubs, no master has become yet.
| Place | Association | Dot | Remaining program |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | SSC Naples | 77 | CFC Genoa (H), Parma Calcio (A), Cagliari Calcio (H) |
2 | Inter Milan | 74 | FC Turin (A), Lazio Rome (H), Como 1907 (A) |
3 | Atalanta | 68 | As Rome (H), CFC Genoa (A), Parma Calcio (H) |
Conte also created a defense bulwark in Naples, this time in a chain of four. No team in one of the top 5 leagues in Europe has conceded fewer goals. Conte has no pirlo in midfield, but at least Stanisav Lobotka. And Scott Mctominay, who is responsible for the connection between defense and attack, and also convinces as a scorer.
Conte can also rely on Romelu Lukaku and his goals, but that’s no surprise. Lukaku, 31, would have liked to have already brought CHELSEA FC, but he didn’t get it. At Inter Milan, they worked for two years together in 2019. They cheered on a championship title and consoled themselves against the lost Champions League final Manchester City. Lukaku scored more goals for no other trainer. The balance in the league alone: Lukaku scored 47 goals in 72 games for Inter.
For Conte, Lukaku is more than just a goal scorer
When Conte became a coach of Naples last summer, it didn’t take long before Lukaku was traded as a new addition. But it passed a few weeks before Conte got his dream player. Two days later, on the last day of August, Lukaku made his debut for Napoli. When he was substituted, Naples was against Parma before the equalization fell in added time. The scorer was called Lukaku. In the end, Contes Naples won.
Since then, Lukaku has always played. He gave ten templates and scored twelve goals, they were not always nice, but often important: he scored three times to 1-0, three times he scored the winning goal. It is also up to him that the SSC Naples could become champions this year.
There is a rule that was never wrong with Inter. It still applies. Conte + Lukaku = success.
In Naples offensive, Lukaku is the target player
The decisive factor for this is an ability to overlook contes that is often overlooked. Conte is a tactic, one for whom even little things count. One day, Conte once said, I have 24 hours. He needs five for his sleep, three for the family. “Stay 16 for work.” In Italy they tell themselves that his wife put a coaching bench into the living room at some point because she often woke up at night and did not find her husband in bed, but in the living room during video studies.
Conte is often reduced to his soft spot for a stable defensive, and he also has ideas for the offensive. They may not be revolutionary how it was the ideas of Pep Guardiola. But they are effective. In Naples, Conte usually lets a 4-3-3 play. In this system, the offensive game is tailored to Lukaku, but not dependent on it. This is ensured by the depth runs of Mctominay, the dribbles by Matteo Politano and Captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo, who is actually a right -back but likes to move into the center, sometimes even into the attack.
Lukaku likes to dribbled, but not always successful. It often runs down, but not always right. Its strengths are others – and Conte uses it cleverly. Lukakus speed helps Naples with switching campaigns. He is the target player, who also processes high passes with his back to the goal and bows into a teammate. Only to complete seconds later.
Some time ago, Lukaku gave the “Corriere Dello Sport” an interview. Of course, it also dealt with his relationship with Conte. Before he met him, Lukaku said, he had it “hated to play with your back to the gate”. He described how Conte showed him the alternative: a place on the replacement bench. “Today I am grateful to him because he turned a weakness from me into a strength.”