Chelsea manager Antonio Conte gave a riveting interview to Sky Sports Italia in which he sounded like an action movie hero on numerous occasions. The Italian went into detail discussing his leadership style and motivational tactics, and many of the sound bites read like they were uttered by Bruce Willis or Liam Neeson in an adventure film.
“In those moments I just kept believing in my work. I thought: ‘If I have to die, at least I will die true to my own ideas,’ Conte said. Here’s the full quote over at this link.
Conte joked with the interviewer, Paolo Di Canio, about his fiery temper, mean streak, and tendency to have violent outbursts on match day. The Italian possesses a Michael Jordan level of competitiveness and insane desire to win. These traits often lead him to reaching boiling points such as a heated argument he had with his right hand man, assistant manager Angelo Alessio this past weekend in the London derby victory over Arsenal.
“Angelo is my right-hand man and also, if you will, my most regular ‘victim’ because he is the closest man to me, the one I have the most direct relationship with,” said Conte.
“Basically, what happened is that before the game, in training, we had clearly prepared a number of situations arising from corners and so forth, and on that occasion Arsenal had a sixth man in the box, and that meant that [Victor] Moses, who was originally meant to be on the edge of the area, had to go mark the sixth man.
“In such cases, [N’Golo] Kante needs to move back from his usual position further forward next to Costa, to take Moses’ place further back, so as not to leave that part of the box uncovered. They failed to do that, and I got angry [with Angelo].”
Antonio Conte is known for his extremely hard nosed style and sometimes authoritarian tactics. He instituted a strict food ban this summer in the preseason. He also took a hard-line this season against the club’s leading scorer and star player Diego Costa, when the two had a row.
No matter who you are, if you stand in the way of winning, you might feel his wrath. No one is completely safe.
“Look Paolo, in such moments I am capable of killing anybody,” he told the Sky presenter.
“I am such a ‘your death is my life’ kind of person that all manners go out of the window in the heat of the moment: the only thing that matters is winning. But that’s because at the end of the day we’re all working towards the same goal and we are all united.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, Bold and the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication, appears regularly as a guest on CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN.
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