Players too devastated to train after Italian’s death

ANTONIO CONTE has spoken of the devastation among players and staff at Tottenham following the death of the club’s popular fitness coach Gian Piero Ventrone at the age of 61.

Italian Ventrone, who was nicknamed ‘the Marine’ because of his tough sessions, died suddenly on Thursday after a short battle with leukaemia.

And Conte revealed after Spurs’ Premier League victory over Brighton last night that his players were too emotional to undertake training upon hearing the news.

‘I have to be honest, it was really difficult for us to be focused on tonight’s game,’ Tottenham manager Conte explained. ‘What’s happened in the last three days was incredible. I knew that the situation was really problematic after the game against Frankfurt but no-one could have expected this situation because no-one knew anything about his illness.

‘The situation hit me a lot in an emotional aspect. When this happens it’s very difficult to cover your feelings with the players, with the people who work at Tottenham. I have seen a lot of solidarity. The players were really devastated by the pain and in the whole Tottenham environment the feeling was really bad.

‘In 10 months Gian Piero got to the hearts of everybody and they appreciated because we are talking about a really big worker, for me in his job he was a scientist.’

Conte revealed that he spoke to Ventrone on Thursday when he first became aware of his condition and was taken aback by his response.

‘When I arrived at the training ground, he wanted to speak with me to ask me if he could stay at home because he had a bit of a fever,’ he continued.

‘It was incredible because he was really, really worried about missing the training and I said “Gian Piero we are talking about the health”. At that moment he spoke to me about his illness and I said “you have to have the right checks and don’t worry”.

‘His first problem was to miss the training and for this reason he was in the heart of every single player and my players were really devastated by the pain, believe me.

‘I’m sure Gian Piero will stay with us forever, I am sure about this.’