Antonio Conte

As Gianfranco noted in his excellent post about Arrigo Sacchi, during the campionato with all the fixtures it is sometimes hard to write about topics unrelated to the season. I’ve never been a fan of the transfer period, 95% of news is bullshit (possibly more) and I’m more interested in preseason friendlies to see how the new team will gel. It’s nice to dream about all the players coming to Juve, but most do not happen. During the Moggi era, we moved swiftly and quietly, so the rumor mill wouldn’t even have time to start. Sadly now, it seems with dunce-in-chief Secco at the helm that any real transfer will be drawn-out and overpriced.

As such, this is profiling a Juventus legend, Antonio Conte. We have such legends playing for us now that sometimes we forget some of the older ones. The irony is not lost on me that when I was growing up and started following La Vecchia Signora in the late 90s we had the best midfield in the world, and now are struggling to fill it. There was Zinedine Zidane, Edgar Davids, my personal favorite Tacchinardi, Di Livio, Deschamps, and of course Antonio Conte. These were the legendary midfielders who led us to 3 consecutive Champion’s League finals in one of our glory eras. It seems that Del Piero has been “il Capitano” for us forever, but he was not our captain during this glory era, taking over in 2001 after recovering from his knee injury. That honor went to Antonio Conte.

Antonio Conte is like me, Pugliese. He grew up playing for his hometown club, US Lecce, making his Serie A debut at age 16 in 1985, going on to make 89 appearances for the club. His talent was obvious, and Juventus snapped him up at age 22. Conte slowly grew into the team under the coaching of Trappatoni, but it was under Lippi that he really grew into a world-class midfielder. Conte was generally a central midfielder, helping to direct play around the midfield. What I remember most about Conte was what we all love about Juventus: His tenacity and work ethic was up there along with Pavel Nedved, he was the engine in our midfield. He never stopped running for Juventus, never stopped fighting, and came up with some absolutely crucial goals when the chips were down.

Conte is without a doubt one of the greatest Juventini to step on the pitch. Among his trophies- 5 scudetti, 1 Champion’s League (3 runners up mdeals), a Uefa cup, an Intertoto Cup, an International Cup (now Fifa Club World Cup), a Coppa Italia, and numerous Supercoppas.