He was already doing this at Juventus, when he claimed that the goal of the team was fourth place, despite being first in the standings, alone, far ahead of his pursuers. The pre-season was also useful to show the signs of the work on the field, the hard work of the players, the very hard work that has always been a symbol of Conte's method: sweat, hard work, a lot of drills, a promise to the fans that the players will give everything for the jersey and the team.
Everything was perfect until the official matches, fans happy and satisfied with the hard work and training, but then came the start of the season. A success on penalty kicks in the Coppa Italia and then a resounding, painful, unbelievable defeat against Verona, a team in the midst of a re-foundation, with many little-known players (Sean Sogliano is so, so good), with the goal of not going back to Serie B. The first official match of the year ended as badly as it could have: 3-0 to Verona, poor performance, zero points and many doubts, controversies and problems to be solved through transfers.
The road ahead is long and hard, Conte said that he and his boys have to work hard on the field, but the club has to do it off the field: and this is the main problem. The Napoli coach expected a better, richer, more aggressive transfer campaign, instead at the moment the most important purchase was Alessandro Buongiorno, the former Torino defender. There is still a big problem to be solved, concerning Victor Osimhen, who has been waiting for months to be sold but is still in Naples: a situation that obviously slows down and blocks other transfers.
Conte expects and wants reinforcements, at least 3-4 new players to raise the level of the squad, but the Napoli management is encountering great difficulties, also and above all because the Azzurri cannot offer European competitions, something that every player of a certain level wants to deal with.
Surely more players will arrive in the coming days, maybe already in the next few hours as we are writing this article, but this means that then those players will have to work a lot on the field with their new teammates to get into the dynamics of the game, to understand what Conte asks of his players, to understand the tactics, to mentally get into the climate built by the Italian coach within his teams.
There is no such word as "surrender", determination and grit are the key words for Conte's teams, everyone has to run until he is out of breath, even in training, to get completely in tune with the schemes to the point of following the game plan by heart. It takes time, it takes a lot of work, but since the year dot, time is earned with serenity and serenity is earned with results. Napoli has to win to earn the trust and serenity of its fans so that it can work with serenity. In contexts where there is a "backs to the wall” situation, "everyone underestimates us" atmosphere, Conte is at his best, he gets excited and brings out the best of his players.
At the moment, the feeling is that there is a huge distance between the coach and the team and, even more seriously, between the coach and the Napoli ownership, which apparently is on his side and supports him, at least it seems, but in deeds fails to give the support Conte would like, or need.
The beginning was a horror show, there is no doubt that Conte is one of the best at getting out of such situations, precisely because of the kind of work he does on the field and in the players' heads, but the first step to get out of these difficulties must be to earn the players' trust and to establish a relationship of empathy with them, because criticising them in front of the microphones will certainly not help him.
A few days ago he said that he struggles to find positive aspects in the market and that Napoli is almost at year zero. It will be long, Conte has all the means to relaunch Napoli, but he will need some positive results or his words will increase the rift. Already from the next match, they need three points and a good performance.