As told in Conte’s book “Testa, Cuore e Gambe”, co-written with Antonio Di Rosa published by Rizzoli. 

The first part of the review can be found here: "Antonio Conte Book Review: Part 1"

I started reading Conte’s autobiography this week, and wanted to share with you, some of the highlights from the chapters on Juve as I suspect it will never be translated into English. This is not a word for word translation of any of the passages, but rather a review of each chapter with some of my personal thoughts.

Chapter 4 of Conte’s new book focuses on Lippi’s first term at Juve from 1994 to 1999. This chapter is particularly interesting since Conte goes over many of things he learned from Lippi (Juve’s best coach of my lifetime unless Conte remains with the club and achieves great success on the European stage), and Del Piero & Moggi make their first appearances. We are also introduced to Fortunato, Zidane and Davids.

Lippi was clearly a big influence on Conte the coach. While their relationship did not get off to a good start (Lippi asked Conte to cut his vacation short after the 1994 Wolrd Cup which Conte refused to do since Roberto Baggio was not asked to do the same), Conte admired Lippi’s ability to motivate his players with the right words and the importance he gave to the athletic preparation- two traits that we have certainly seen from Conte in his first two seasons as Juve coach. Lippi moved Conte from his central position to the wings, something Conte did not particularly enjoy since he was asked to do a lot of work both offensively and defensively (something that I am sure Juve’s current players can also understand).

Conte expressed his frustrations with the position change to a Gazzetta Dello Sport journalist, which made Moggi, Giraudo and Lippi furious. Lippi called a meeting with the entire team, and explained to Conte the importance of never putting his own wishes ahead of the good of the group. We all know how important this concept is to Conte today as Juve’s coach. Let’s go for a quick tangent- that episode immediately made me think of Ibrahimovic potentially arriving at Juve, while on the surface Ibrahimovic does not seem to fit the “group over individual” philosophy, Pirlo was also recently quoted by Sky Sport saying Ibrahimovic has never caused a problem in the locker room (the two were teammates at Milan in the 2010-11 season) and that if he was so disruptive there is no way he would have won as much as he has (and for those who always point out Ibra’s short comings in CL, I would like to bring to your attention fact he has scored 12 goals with 11 assists in his last 24 Champions League matches). Now that I got that off my chest, back to Conte’s book.

Conte describes how after a defeat against Foggia, Lippi vowed that if Juve was going to lose a game, it would at least have to do so while attacking. The great offensive trio of Vialli, Ravanelli, Del Piero was born from that loss, as well as Conte the coach’s mandate that strikers must also help the team defensively. Lippi demanded that his three strikers work hard to help out the team often retreating all the way to Juve’s penalty area, which we have also certainly seen in Juve’s last two seasons as well.

One of the things I am hoping to get out of this book is some insight in Conte and Del Piero’s relationship. While I do think it’s too simplistic to say Del Piero left Juve because he did not get along with Conte, since he also wanted to play more, I suspect it would have been nearly impossible for both of them to remain in Turin this past season. In this chapter, Conte describes Del Piero as the best footballer he has ever had as a teammate along with Zidane- quite the praise when you think of all the great players Conte has been teammates with. Conte describes how well Del Piero replaced Roberto Baggio once the Divino Codino was sold to Milan, and the devastating impact Del Piero’s knee injury had in the last season of Lippi’s first term as Juve’s coach. So in this chapter, there are only kind words for Del Piero- I am curios to see if this changes later in the book.

Zidane is described as great footballer (which we all know of course) as well as very humble teammate, something which was somewhat of a surprise to me. Many of Conte’s players at Arezzo, Bari and Siena would often ask if even Zidane had to go through the tough training sessions Conte put them through- and Conte would respond that it was Zidane’s humility, hard work and willingness to be treated like any other player on the team that made him great.

Conte also describes in this chapter the joy of becoming Juve captain and of winning the Champions League against Ajax, a game in which he suffered a serious injury on a tackle from his future teammate Edgar Davids (whom Conte describes as a somewhat aloof once he joined Juve). A moving passage of the chapter was the part on Andrea Fortunato, who tragically died from leukemia. I did remember Ravanelli and Fortunato being particularly close, but I wasn’t aware that Ravenelli had Fortunato staying at his house in Perugia where Fortunato was receiving treatments.

Towards the end of the chapter, Conte describes how after losing his starting job, mainly due to the injury, he actually considered leaving Juve because he believed he may have needed some new motivations. This made me think of his current situation with the club. While I would be shocked should Conte not return next season, he has mentioned recently how motivations (not his own, but more of the players and Juve’s management) are almost as important as Juve’s transfer targets and his new contract in determining how long he will stay in Turin. I suspect how just in this chapter, Conte needed to recharge his batteries after returning from a difficult injuries he just needs some time off now- remember he had to spend last summer defending himself from the recent betting scandal rather than being able to enjoy his first scudetto as Juve coach.