Antonio Conte has become the figure of much ridicule as Tottenham reportedly work to agree his exit from the club, but it’s all too easy to forget the personal challenges he’s faced in recent months, Apollo Heyes highlights.
Things have not gone well for the Italian coach in North London this season and his press conference rant after the recent draw with Southampton was only the latest sign of the growing tension at Spurs.
Various media reports suggest Tottenham are now working on Conte’s departure from the club, prompting criticism and amusement from the wider footballing community.
The 53-year-old’s stock is seemingly falling at a rate of knots, but some consideration must be made for the human aspect of this collapse.
Back in October, Conte’s close friend and collaborator Gian Piero Ventrone unexpectedly passed away at the age of 62, a loss that had a profound impact on the Italian coach and the rest of the team at Tottenham.
Just over two months later, another of Conte’s friends Sinisa Mihajlovic sadly died at the age of 53 following a long battle with leukaemia, another extremely painful loss for the Tottenham coach.
A month later, a third person close to the Italian coach passed away – former teammate Gianluca Vialli, adding to Conte’s grief.
Whilst still dealing with all this heartbreak, Conte was forced to undergo an emergency gallbladder surgery in February, forcing him to miss a number of Spurs games as he recovered.
The Tottenham coach was dealing with all of this whilst living in a hotel in London, with his wife and children staying in their home in Turin rather than uprooting their lives to join him in England.
Whilst it may be fair to criticise Conte for Spurs’ general misery on the pitch, it’s hardly a surprise that he was unable to truly show his best this season, dealing with tragedy after tragedy in a hotel thousands of miles away from his family.