Antonio Conte continues his process of Italianising Tottenham Hotspur, as after running players ragged in training, he also hired Italy’s EURO 2020-winning set-piece specialist Gianni Vio.
The coach arrived in November 2021 and took Spurs to an unlikely fourth-place Premier League finish, putting them back in the Champions League.
Pre-season has just started in South Korea and footage emerged today of players including Harry Kane and Son Heung-min collapsed on the ground feeling physically sick after one day of Conte’s infamous training regime.
That’s not all, as Conte is determined to make Tottenham as Italian a club as possible, bringing in set-piece specialist Gianni Vio.
He is famous in Italian football for his tactical prowess, reportedly having as many as 4,400 different dead ball situations in his files.
Vio was part of Roberto Mancini’s Italy staff when winning the European Championship last summer.
His career started unceremoniously, working in a bank and doing part-time training with Serie D side Quinto di Treviso.
At the time, he used the fact the squad had a pair of twins to confuse opposition players trying to mark them on corners and free kicks.
After writing a book on tactics in 2004, Vio was called by Walter Zenga to work for Red Star Belgrade, Al-Ain and then Serie A club Catania, all while balancing his banking career.
Catania scored 17 of their 44 goals that season from set plays, confirming Vio’s importance and allowing him to start football full-time.
He had spells at Palermo, Milan, Brentford, Leeds United, SPAL and Cagliari before joining Mancini’s Italy staff.
“A dead ball situation gives you the opportunity to decide which players to put into the penalty area and the precise zones to attack,” Vio told La Nuova Venezia.
“It’s just like a game of chess, the first move follows the logic of the sequential moves, so you force your opponent to make certain choices in reaction.”