Juventus yesterday signed former club captain Antonio Conte as the replacement for departed coach Luigi Delneri. The 41-year-old has signed a two-year contract taking him up to the end of June 2013.
Earlier in the day Juve officially announced Delneri’s departure, although the 60-year-old had already revealed his imminent exit before the end of the season.
Conte has just guided Siena to promotion back to Serie A, a feat he had already achieved with Bari in 2009. However, veteran Juve and Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon warned against placing too high expectations on his shoulders.
“The following months will determine if it was the right decision or not but his CV speaks volumes,” he said.
“As a coach he’s always attained the results asked of him, he adds a winning attitude. As a player he was extremely charismatic and he knows the club. But there’s a long way between that and winning.
“The players need to make themselves available and he needs the club’s support. Without a strong club, a coach won’t win.”
Conte was an integral part of the successful Juventus team in 1990s and beginning of the new millennium. He played 296 games for the Turin giants, winning five league titles and the Champions League in 1996.
He was also capped 20 times by Italy and was part of the squads that reached the 1994 World Cup final and 2000 European Championship final.
He started his coaching career at Arezzo in 2007 where he was fired and then reinstated during the season and ultimately suffered relegation from Serie B thanks to Juve – who had been demoted for their part in the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal. Having already gained promotion, Juve lost at home to Spezia, sending Arezzo down.
He then went to Bari, again in Serie B, where he was initially unpopular among the club’s hardcore fans since he is from their Puglia rivals Lecce, where he started his playing career.
However, in his first season he kept them up and in his second they won the Serie B title. He fell out with the club’s bosses over their transfer policy and moved to Atalanta, but after only 13 points from 13 games, he quit.
This season he joined Siena, who like Atalanta had been relegated to Serie B, where again he led them to promotion.