Antonio Conte has pulled himself out of the running to become Italy’s next CT. “I have 18 months left on my Chelsea contract and my desire is to fulfil it.”
Antonio Conte has pulled himself out of the running to become Italy’s next CT. “I have 18 months left on my Chelsea contract and my desire is to fulfil it.”
The FIGC confirmed on Thursday that Conte was one of four candidates being considered to replace Giampiero Ventura, while vice-commissioner – former Italy defender Alessandro Costacurta – claimed he was on his way to London to hold talks with his ex-international teammate.
However, the Coach said at a Press conference: “I can tell you that Costacurta is a friend and we played together in the national team in 1994.
“Maybe he forgot that I have 18 months on my contract at Chelsea and my will and desire is to fulfil this contract.
“I think from the start of this season there are a lot of speculation and rumours. The only thing that I can say now is that I have 18 months left and my will and desire is to stay here and do my work.
“This is my will. I don’t see problems about this. Speculation about my future? I don’t know why. My intention and will is to respect the contract. We signed three years and that is my will to respect the contract.
“From the start of the season if you remember there were a lot of speculations to be sacked.
“I am not interested in this and my only desire is to do my work. We know very well the difficulty. We must be prepared and we know very well which is our path of this future.
“As you know very well I trust in my work and this is the only thing that I trust, in my work.
“This is the only way that brought me to be one of the best coaches or managers, I trust only in my work and nothing else, in my work and job and I continue in this way.
“[The speculation] doesn’t affect me. I hope you are starting to know me well in this situation.
“The situation has been always the same, with a lot of pressure around me and I don’t understand why only around me.
“Maybe because this is Chelsea, maybe this is the only thing. Pressure is life, if I stay without pressure I don’t like.
“I like this type of situation. If I see there is no pressure it is not for me or for the players, because you lose the fire.
“Emerson? Emerson played only one season in Roma and had a bad injury. He is an option with Marcos Alonso and this is good. But you know very well.
“Who deserves it, plays. It is important for me to look at the training session and who deserves to play does play.”