When Antonio Conte appears this cheerful, it's a sign for competitors to start fretting. The Napoli manager beamed widely as he roamed around his former turf at San Siro, praising players, patting backs, and giving hearty bear hugs. 'This is one of the best groups I've worked with in my career,' he told broadcaster DAZN. 'I'm breathing clean, beautiful air. I'm breathing the passion and the enthusiasm.' His team had just defeated Milan 2-0, extending their lead to seven points at the top of Serie A after 10 games. A fleeting moment—the teams immediately behind them are yet to play in this midweek round—but still an astonishing turnaround for a Napoli side who finished 41 points behind the champions, Inter, last season.
Is this team for real? Has Conte, appointed as manager in June, already transformed them from the worst title defenders of all time into genuine contenders? Tuesday's game marked the start of a six-week run that was expected to provide some answers. The fixture list had granted them a relatively easy start to the season, but now they would face Milan, Atalanta, Inter, Roma, Torino, and Lazio (twice) in the run-up to Christmas.
Napoli needed just five minutes to demonstrate their fearlessness. The center-back Amir Rrahmani fed André-Frank Zambo Anguissa in the middle of Milan's half, and he took one touch to turn before releasing Romelu Lukaku with a ball through the middle of the defense. The Belgian shrugged off a challenge from Strahinja Pavlovic and finished into the bottom right corner. It was a goal that encapsulated so much of Napoli's start to this season: the swagger and the small details. No coach has ever understood Lukaku like Conte, and the player's confidence was evident in the way he sent Milan's 6ft 4ins Serbia center-back to the floor. But the less eye-catching movement of Matteo Politano, pulling wide from the right of attack, also helped create space for Anguissa to deliver the assist.
With the lead established, Napoli happily ceded possession to their hosts, adopting a stance familiar to anyone who has watched Conte's sides: deep and compact but ready to spring into action. The killer blow, just before halftime, was an act of individual brilliance: Khvicha Kvaratskhelia cutting across the face of the area from the left and firing past the keeper from 20 yards. A scene we've seen before, but no less breathtaking for it. Milan never recovered. There was a moment, at the start of the second half, when Álvaro Morata headed Samuel Chukwueze's devilish inswinger past Alex Meret and San Siro rocked to thumping electronica. But after a long silent check, the Spaniard was confirmed to have been a fraction offside.
It takes two teams to play a football match, and this one spoke as loudly to Milan's flaws as Napoli's strengths. The Rossoneri are struggling to find their identity under their own new manager, Paulo Fonseca, and his decision to leave Rafael Leão out of the starting XI for a second consecutive league game will only fuel speculation of a rift. Christian Pulisic, Milan's standout performer this season, also missed the first hour as he recovers from a stomach virus. But Napoli can only beat the opponents in front of them. They have been doing it with startling consistency. Since opening their campaign with a shocking 3-0 defeat to Verona, they have won eight of nine matches—a sequence interrupted only by a goalless draw at Juventus. The Partenopei have already kept seven clean sheets in Serie A—as many as they managed in their entire 2023-24 campaign.
Their absence from European competition has been an advantage, allowing Conte more time to work on the training ground with players who arrived late in the transfer window. The club's failure to find a buyer for Victor Osimhen had threatened to throw all of Conte's plans off course, but deals for Lukaku, Scott McTominay, and Billy Gilmour were realized in the final week of August. All have made an impact. Lukaku's goal on Tuesday was his fourth of the campaign. McTominay has been Napoli's wildcard, allowing the manager to deploy a hybrid 4-3-3/4-2-4 as he moves forward from midfield to play as a second center-forward. Gilmour looks ever more at home at the heart of midfield. Conte yelled 'Grandissimo! Top!' as he wrapped the former Brighton player in his arms at full-time.
Is it enough to sustain a Scudetto challenge? Realistically, it's too early to say. But there's a lot to like about this Napoli, from the new signings—including Alessandro Buongiorno, as well, at center-back—to the enduring heroes of the 2022-23 title-winning team. Kvaratskhelia is being asked to track back more than ever under Conte and has frequently been withdrawn before the 90th minute to rescue him from exhaustion. But he's also granted freedom to follow his instincts and move inside with the ball, as he did to such devastating effect on Tuesday. Anguissa looks to have recaptured the form he showed under Luciano Spalletti, while the left-back Mathías Olivera is turning in some of his best performances in a Napoli shirt.
Asked whether the players believe they can win the league again, Kvaratskhelia replied without hesitation: 'Yes. Obviously.' Even Conte didn't shy away from the prospect, saying: 'We can see realistically what we're doing after 10 games. It's something incredible that even the craziest among us wouldn't have expected.' He stressed that the club's primary aim was still simply to return to Europe, and ideally the Champions League. 'But we want our fans to dream.' It's his presence, above all, inspiring them to do so. Conte is the manager who wins everywhere he goes: leading Juventus back to the summit after the Calciopoli scandal, Inter to their first Serie A title in more than a decade, and Chelsea to a Premier League triumph in-between.
Well, almost everywhere. Defending his record at Tottenham once more on Tuesday night, Conte pointed out that he had inherited a side who were ninth in the table and took them into the Champions League, adding: 'I can't perform miracles.' Winning the league with Napoli this season might lead a few people to question that assertion, in a city where the iconographies of football and religion so regularly blend into one. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Conte and his team will be called back to San Siro a week on Sunday to face the reigning champions. Their trials have barely begun.
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