Antonio Conte, the new Chelsea manager has called his first Scudetto with Juventus the greatest achievement of his managerial career.
The highly sought after Italian manager had a great campaign with the Italian national team in the recently-concluded 2016 European Championships; even though Italy crashed out at the quarter-final stage. Conte, rightly, was given credit for a fearless Italian campaign that saw them beat Belgium and Spain convincingly and only fall to the Germans on penalties.
At 47 years old, Conte is only in the initial phase of his managerial career but, he has already won 4 Serie A league titles that include 3 Scudetto wins with Juventus and a Serie B crown with Bari.
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The former Juve midfield general is quite clear that his first title was the sweetest of his career, though. Juventus had finished 7th the previous season but Conte immediately transformed the Bianconeri as they pipped a Zlatan Ibrahimovic-led Milan to the Serie A crown in the 2011-12 season.
"As a coach [my greatest achievement] was the first championship of my career with Juventus, It was fantastic because we started the season as the underdog and the press had us down for sixth or seventh place in the table."
It still remains, incredibly, as the only year Ibrahimovic has not won the League title in his career since his Eredivisie title with Ajax in the 2003-04 season. Conte remembers pretty well about Zlatan’s history and his incredible achievements, "I remember that Milan had Zlatan Ibrahimovic and it was the only season that he didn't win the championship. I hope that this season is the same again!"
"I remember Inter won the treble in their last season under Mourinho and Napoli had Cavani and Hamsik, in that period we were the underdogs and we won our first title unbeaten as well as the Coppa Italia."
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The Italian goes on to talk about the challenges at his new club and looks forward to the season ahead, "When you finish in tenth place it means there are problems. In this situation, the most important thing is to think of the present. Don't forget about the past because it teaches us a lot. It is important to think of the present because we must work very hard and speak through our actions, not words.”
Conte also spoke about how there are issues in his team but he hopes to work it out, “Because it is important now to say okay, we are ready to fight, we can come back very soon and to win the title - those are just words. It’s important now to act, all together, because now is not a good period for us. There are problems but we stay here to solve them."
Conte is hoping to create a positive atmosphere and rally the fans, club and players together to lead a successful campaign, he said, "The situation is not easy and it's very important to understand this. Also, it's important to stay together in this moment and to create the right spirit between us, the fans, the club, players, manager and all the people who work at Chelsea."
