Shortly thereafter Serie A named Romelu Lukaku the league’s MVP, he reflected on the sheer relentlessness of Antonio Conte’s approach at Inter Milan.
“To learn how to win is basically pushing the barrier,” Lukaku said. “Every trainer has a different way of coaching, but with Antonio, we really learned how to go to the red zone. That was it.”
Conte understands what it means to push your limits. He does not put his players through anything he didn’t experience himself. Gian Piero Ventrone is the author. TottenhamConte, a fitness coach who died on Thursday following a sudden death, is a testament to his hard work.
Ventrone was a member of Marcello Lippi’s coaching staff at JuventusIn the 1990s, Conte had to break a gut in the midfield to make it through the running required to support Gianluca Vialli, Alessandro Del Piero, and Fabrizio Ravanelli up front. Ventrone was the one who instilled the discipline that Conte still lives by. He was nicknamed ‘The Marine’ after serving in the San Marco battalion of the Italian Navy and the gruelling training he underwent in the US became the foundation of a “revolution” in football fitness.
Giancarlo Marocchi, the former Juventus midfielder and Conte’s old team-mate, reported for pre-season in 1994 knowing a training camp like no other awaited him. “I’ll always remember my astonishment at seeing the gym. I’d never seen one like it before.” Asked for his impressions years later, goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi said: “My abs are still hurting.”
Ventrone made Juventus a unit.
