Antonio Conte joins Napoli: Italian manager signs a three-year deal to return to Serie A until 2027

The Serie A coaching move that's been rumored for months is finally official. Antonio Conte is the new Napoli head coach. The Italian manager will return to Italy to coach a Serie A team after his experience in the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur and signed a three-year deal until the summer of 2027 with the club owned by Aurelio De Laurentiis. After a disappointing season, Napoli will start a new chapter under Conte, who returns to the Italian Serie A three years after he left. 

In the official statement, Napoli owner De Lurentiis said, "I am very proud that the new coach of Napoli is Antonio Conte. Antonio is a top coach, a leader, with whom I am sure that the necessary refoundation can begin after the conclusion of the cycle that led us to win the Scudetto last year after many seasons at the top of Italian Football."

Conte praised his new club in a statement.

"Napoli is a place of global importance. I am happy and excited at the idea of sitting on the Azzurri bench. I can certainly promise one thing -- I will do my utmost for the growth of the team and the club. My commitment, together with that of my staff, it will be total."

After starting his coaching career at Arezzo, Siena and Bari, Juventus appointed Conte in the summer 2011 where he brought the club back to win the Scudetto for the first time since the Calciopoli Scandal in 2006. In the summer of 2014, Conte stepped down from the job and became the coach of the Italian national team, leading the Azzurri to the quarterfinals of the UEFA Euro 2016. 

In the same summer, the Italian coach joined Chelsea where he won the Premier League title in his first year in charge, but was sacked at the end of his second season despite winning the FA Cup thanks to a difficult relationship with club's owner Roman Abrahmovic. In 2019 he made his comeback in Italian soccer after Inter decided to appoint him, and he won the Scudetto in his second season, but then stepped down again from his duties since the club was forced to sell two key players from his roster in Romelu Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi due to financial issues. Former Juventus sport director Fabio Paratici convinced Conte to join Tottenham in November 2021, and after a strong start of his Spurs experience, taking Spurs to a top-four finish and qualifying for the Champions League, the two sides parted ways in March 2023. 

Conte is now ready to be back and De Laurentiis decided to appoint him and his backroom staff to bring the club back to glory after Napoli failed to qualify for European comPetitions and ended up tenth in the Italian league only one year after winning a historical Scudetto. Napoli, after parting ways with Luciano Spalletti in the summer 2023, appointed three manager over the last season (Rudi Garcia, Walter Mazzarri and Francesco Calzona), but none of them were able to rediscover the magic the club had during the previous season. Will Conte be able to do it? 

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