Premier League: Why Chelsea boss Antonio Conte wants his players to 'come off the pitch spitting blood'

Antonio Conte, like his entire playing and managerial career, relied on hard work to make the 1994 World Cup squad for Italy. He had not even been chosen for his senior debut until May that year. But Arrigo Sacchi saw in him the grafter he deeply admired. However, such was the legendary manager’s penchant for the obsessive that none of his players wished to sit beside him at the dinner table. Conte, however, did not mind football taking his mind off the food. In Sacchi, the then Juventus midfielder found an idol. It is no wonder that a few of Sacci’s methods are now part of the Conte manual. [caption id=“attachment_3137750” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Antonio Conte. Reuters[/caption] The 47-year-old’s workaholic nature is behind Chelsea’s resurgence in the Premier League this season. Seven wins in a row have seen the Blues shoot to the top of the table. Conte once told ESPN that he worked 16 hours a day. It is this punishing schedule that seems to bring the results for him. Even as a player, Conte stood out for his work rate rather than a special ability. He has only carried his best practices to football management. Andrea Pirlo once described Conte’s obsessiveness as an “inner torment without a start or end point”. There is no room for failure in his world. As Thore Haugstad’s profile notes, Conte did not sleep for five days when Juventus let the Serie A title slip on the final day of the 1999-‘00 campaign. It is this fear of failure which pushes Conte in the search for victory. In his desire for success, the Italian is not worried about challenging convention or flipping traditions. When Conte joined Siena in 2010, he implemented a 4-2-4 system which emphasised a high press combined with fast circulation of the ball. This system was a hallmark of his successful Juventus side too. But he remained open to changing the team’s style of play if the situation demanded so. A key match against Roma in January 2014 was an accurate reflection of his flexibility. Rudi Garcia’s side visited Juventus in a match of crucial importance for the title race. Although the Bianconeri favoured a possession-based high pressing approach, Conte chose to cede the control of the ball to Roma. The visitors were caught off guard as they could no longer play their trademark counterattacking style. The result was a 3-0 win for Juventus. By building a side full of versatile players, Conte was able impose his mastery on domestic rivals. With his belief in structured football, the manager is known to make his players work on predetermined moves in training. As a player, Conte would find himself confused on the pitch. Hence, he ensures his players know where to run and pass when in possession or otherwise. As Haugstad correctly observed in Conte’s profile, this was a method associated with the likes of Sacchi and Louis van Gaal - managers Conte deeply admires. Defender Mattia de Sciglio once told Football Italia, “Conte has the ability to make you memorise movements and tactics very quickly. So if you are having a moment of difficulty on the field, you know that one of your teammates will be in that position.” Such clarity of vision is immensely helpful to any side, but particularly to a team which does not possess star power or is undergoing a crisis of sorts. Chelsea’s players have certainly benefited from Conte’s approach to problem-solving. After Jose Mourinho, the Italian may become the first manager to stamp his identity on the club. Conte’s love for self-improvement drove him to learn English before he even had an offer to work in the country. This meant that his transition to Chelsea was smooth. Despite an exhausting campaign at Euro 2016 with the Italian national team, Conte was back to work within a week. During the pre-season, he was insistent on pushing his new players to the limit as he oversaw training for six hours in a day. After a diffident start, Chelsea has turned a corner. Since switching to a three-man backline at half-time against Arsenal when the score stood at 0-3, the club has only conceded once. That goal came last weekend against Spurs but the match ended in an impressive comeback win. The 3-4-3 system has worked wonders for Conte, particularly in the way he has managed to ooze out marvellous displays from his wing-backs Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso. When the Italian was in charge of the national side, he demanded a lot of effort and running from the men on the flanks. He wanted the wing-backs to “come off the pitch spitting blood”. Moses and Alonso have not been pushed to those extraordinary limits yet but it is clear that Conte expects no less from them. However, as Spurs showed in the previous match, a high-pressing side can cause problems for Chelsea. The Blues are not likely to dictate terms in Manchester on Saturday as City likes to win the ball in the opposition half. It will be interesting to see whether Pep Guardiola will make specific changes to combat his free-flowing opposition. As we have seen in the past, Conte himself is not averse to tweaking his plans for matches against major rivals. But considering Chelsea’s successful run at the moment, it seems highly unlikely that the Italian will change a team which has remained much the same in composition over the past few weeks. Come the kick-off whistle, though, Conte will respond to the occasion like the intrepid man he is. Television broadcasters have flirted with an idea of a ‘Conte Cam’ in the past. When he returned from a four-month suspension (for failure to report an attempt to fix matches during his time at Siena) to the Juventus bench in 2012, Sky Italia assigned a cameraman to focus on the manager. It may not be a bad idea to designate a camera each for Conte and Guardiola when the two maestros face-off in Manchester. In a title race which continues to confound expectations, specific video footage of the managers will add another layer of drama. Even if the idea does not come to fruition, one can rely on Conte to provide the fireworks. His predilection for hysterical reactions on the touchline will keep the broadcasters busy. But the Italian will be the first to tell you, it is not an act. Rather, all of it is done to seek the thing which defines Conte’s life - victory.