Tottenham Hotspur coach Antonio Conte said he will ‘do everything to deserve the support’ of the fans and revealed his pride of having ‘started and stopped’ Juventus’ dominance in Serie A.
The former Inter coach left Serie A after picking up the club’s first Scudetto in 11 years and ultimately ending a Juventus cycle he had started in 2011-12.
Conte was officially announced as the new Tottenham Hotspur coach on Tuesday and spoke to the club’s official channel today.
Spurs are ninth in the Premier League after 10 games and Conte said ‘it’s a great honour’ to take over at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and hopes to please the fans by playing ‘good and attractive football’.
“To be Tottenham coach is a great pleasure, it’s a great honour,” Conte told the club’s official channel. “Now, for sure, I want to repay this trust.
“My philosophy is very simple, to play good and attractive football for our fans, with passion. To have a stable team, not up and down.
“I think that the fans deserve to have a competitive team with the will to fight. I will do everything to deserve their support.”
Conte has won the Scudetto four times as a coach, three with Juventus and one with Inter, and he picked up the Premier League title in his first year at Chelsea.
He spoke about his time as a coach in Serie A and how he ‘started and stopped’ the Juventus domination in the Italian top flight.
Now, he’s back in England after the success at Inter and said the previous achievements are now history and hopes to write an ‘important’ chapter in his career at Tottenham.
“This is the past,” he said when asked what drives him on. “I live in the present. For Juventus, I played 13 years, I won a lot, everything. Then I came back, to start as a coach and to win nine titles in a row.
“It means that you have dominated. I started this cycle and I stopped it with Inter. The last two years at Milan, we had the second-best attack and the best defence.
“My past, what I did in the previous teams, is important and I’m proud. For me, the new challenge is Tottenham and I want that to become an important part of my career as a coach.”
Conte has already revealed he was asked to take over at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium over the summer and reiterated why he decided to wait.
“Honestly, I was called last summer,” he said. “But I was very clear with Tottenham because I had just finished two important seasons with Inter, two very tough seasons.
“It honestly wasn’t the right time to start again another place. I preferred to wait, I preferred to enjoy the time with my family.
“Also, because I think, emotionally, I was still attached to the last experience with Inter.”
The former Italy CT looks forward to the new chapter at the ‘wonderful’ stadium and training ground in North London.
“Tottenham are an important club in England and an important club in the world,” he said. “The stadium and training ground are wonderful.
“The club and Daniel Levy wanted me strongly, I think this is a great opportunity. It’s an honour to accept to become the manager.
“I have seen the training ground today and I wanted to start to work. I arrive at a top club, these types of situations push you and increase the desire to work and do something important for the fans of this club.”