Inter Milan coach Antonio Conte reacts saturday to the Serie A clash with Atalanta at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri in Bergamo. Photograph: Reuters / Alberto Lingria
When Inter Milan coach Antonio Conte faces the cameras after a game, it’s about turning on the blue paper and repressing himself.
In his first season at Inter, former coach Juventus, Italy and 51-year-old Chelsea denounced his club’s “poor planning” and a list of “pointless” matches, and even blamed the opponent with poor functionality betting on one. kind of football.
His last outburst, however, after a 2-0 win in Atalanta on Saturday that secured Inter’s moment position in Serie A, generated all sorts of intrigue.
“I don’t think the players’ cadre has been recognized and I don’t think my paintings were recognized,” he said, before accusing the unidentified members of the club of appearing their faces only when things were going well.
“We have all gained very little club coverage, zero.”
This has left Italian media such as Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport wondering if he will resign. Will the club fire you? Did he mean a particular director, such as general manager Giuseppe Marotta, sporting director Piero Ausilio or even club president Steven Zhang?
Conte also said that nothing had been replaced at Inter since an interview given through his predecessor Luciano Spalletti, an obvious reference to Spalletti’s statement that there was a “lunar” in the Inter locker room that leaked the team’s gossip to the media.
So far, Inter has tended to help his coach. After their court cases that the team lacked in depth strength, they signed Christian Eriksen, Ashley Young and Victor Moses to the January merchandise.
Inter’s 82-point count, the most productive since the 2009-10 three-pointer season, seemed to justify the club’s confidence in its volatile coach and Marotta, who in the past worked with Conte at Juventus, was a diplomat in his post-match comments.
“We’ll have to go down this path,” he told Inter’s website. “We have a team that has proven and proven so much that it is up to the task, you can see the pictures Conte has made.”
Even with former Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri already discussed as an imaginable replacement, Inter-Conte dating seemed to have reached a kind of crossroads.