CHELSEA v PETERBORO OLD MAN RAVER!
Conte wants this job to go on and on... like Sir Alex and Wenger
ANTONIO CONTE wants to be a managerial monster like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger and stick around for many years.
But please don’t tell his wife Elisabetta.
Managers’ longevity was thrust back i nto the spotlight last week when Pep Guardiola announced he was “arriving at the end” of his career.
Manchester City boss Pep, 45, went on to claim “the process of my goodbye has already started”, before backtracking later in the week and assuring City fans he’d be at the Etihad for some time yet.
Conte puts Guardiola’s words down to fatigue, not just a heavy Christmas and New Year schedule but also years on the training ground, day after day, as a player and then a manager.
Like Guardiola, Conte played at and manages at the top level – but while the City boss is adamant he’ll be found on a golf course in his dotage and far away from football, the Italian admits he will be in the game for another decade at least, maybe even two more. He also reckons that without football, men like him and Guardiola “probably die”. Ferguson (inset, top) retired aged 71 while Wenger (below) is still going strong at 67.
Monsters
Asked if he saw himself going on that long, Conte said: “You are talking about two monsters, two great managers. “Sir Alex Ferguson is a good example for me. “When I see him and when I see Arsene, they are a big example for me. “I hope to have not completely their career, but 10 more years? Yes. It’s enough for me. “Twenty more years? Now I’m 47. “I prefer that my wife doesn’t listen to this – but this is our life. Football is our life. The moment that football is not in our life, I think probably we die!
“I have great respect for Pep. Managers use up lot of energy and sometimes you can think about doing something else. But. I’m sure that Pep wants to continue for some time to come.”
Conte’s side take on Grant McCann’s Peterborough today in the FA Cup third round and his experience as a player means he won’t be taking it lightly as he knows what it’s like to be on the wrong end of a giant-killing.
He added: “It happened when I was a footballer for Juventus.
“We played Brescello, a small team in the same category as Peterborough.
“In the first game we drew 1-1. In the second at home we won 4-0. “In the first game I scored. “This type of game is always very difficult, above all if you don’t arrive with the right tension, with the right focus.
“In England it doesn’t exist, an ‘easy game’, above all in the FA Cup.”