After taking a break for a year, Antonio Conte's desire is to go back on a bench and to lift more trophies. The former Chelsea coach, who won four league trophies in his career, is pondering a return to Serie A, as he revealed in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Conte explained how his experience in the Premier League was crucial in his path to improving, not only as a coach, to the point that he would suggest every fellow manager to do the same and take on a challenge abroad. But now he is "ready to return", as he himself revealed to the Italian press. Amongst the clubs rumoured to be interested in bringing back the ex-Italy coach to Serie A there's Roma, but Conte cooled down the gossip, stating that "The circumstances are not right for that to happen at the moment".
He then revealed which are the fundamental conditions that made persuad him to take a job: "I need a club that doesn't want someone who could control the damage, someone who should only get along with things. I want to leave my mark on the things I do". He also clearly stated that he wants to be contacted only by clubs who wants a leader at the wheel, clubs that aim to win trophies.
Now, with Roma out of the picture, which are the clubs that could hire Conte? There are two possible scenarios emerging for the coach's future and they involve Juventus and Inter. Conte would gladly return to the Bianconeri, as he confirmed himself in the interview with La Gazzetta, and the connection with the Juventini is still very strong. A return at the Juventus Stadium, however, is made difficult by Allegri's situation. The current Juventus boss is in fact not at all certain to leave the club as the meeting between him and the club regarding his future is yet to take place. In addition to that, the club has not sent any signal regarding a return on the Bianconeri benchtowards Conte's direction .
On the flipside, there's Inter with the Nerazzurri's CEO Marotta still pushing to bring in the manager whom he worked with at Juventus. However, there are a couple of negative aspects, both financial and internal to the club, holding back a positive conclusion of the deal. From the financial perspective, hiring Conte would necessarily mean parting ways with Spalletti and his staff: a move that could cost up to 30 million to Zhang's club. In addition to that, hiring Conte won't come cheap either, with the total sum of the deal exceeding 50 million euros. From the internal perspective, a part of the club has publicly confirmed their faith in Spalletti also for the future, as they seem reluctant to make a managerial change at the moment. In this scenario, a crucial role could be played by Marotta, who could leverage on the fact that keeping Spalletti would almost inevitably mean a departure of former captain and arguably Inter's most valuable asset Mauro Icardi, who could conversely play a significant part in Conte's tactical plan.
