He had started softly, almost yielding Conte. No, let's not talk about the camp, in fact it had been the opposite, it had tamed Westfalen in the First Half as rarely seen in the last ten years.
Let's talk about the post-game. Almost resigned in the beginning in the declarations: "Too many alibis to pull out, if I had to talk about the Second Half". Adding then "What do I repeat doing the same things?"
But Antonio Conte never gives up, even when it seems compliant. It was just a wave that retreated, to then arrive with the impetus of the tsunami.
He was in the sentences after he overwhelmed everything with the same fury he had on the sidelines, only translated on the dialectical level: "I hope that these games make it clear to those who must understand some things. And maybe some leader came up sometimes to say something. "
And then the final attack, the one that perhaps goes beyond the very wide limits that his friend Marotta grants him: "Here it was programmed at the beginning, but surely it could have been planned a lot, but much better. Important mistakes have been made. We cannot do championship and Champions League in these conditions ".
Boom.
These words will be talked about for a long time. Is it a zero-rise attack on society? Has a self-destruction process begun? None of this.
Conte is a winner, of those who are physically annoyed by the defeat, just like the race winners, the Cristiano Ronaldo, the Hamilton, the Federer etc. And his mission was and is to be able to look at the heavyweights in the eyes, starting from the game: Juventus in Italy, Barcelona or Borussia Dortmund in their home in Europe. And he succeeded, something Inter weren't really used to anymore.
Having taken that step, and done in a very short time, now he is no longer satisfied. He wants to compete to win and not just to have a slap on the back.
So far the constructive side of his words. The passage on the leader who comes to speak can also be an exaggeration escaped there, precisely precisely of those who cannot even physically accept having to face a defeat. But the other words, although hot, are of a heat that is lava that risks liquefying, if not treated properly.
What are the important mistakes that Conte talks about? What could be better planned?
After all, Inter has spent a lot, yes a couple of things could have been done, but in this situation it is more unlucky because of the absences, which is lacking due to the market.
And if perhaps the important mistake in the programming should reside in the fact that he asked himself not to make first-goal distinctions between the championship and the Champions League despite not having the means, and having the further misfortune of the group undoubtedly more difficult than the competition?
If Conte is lava that liquefies, Marotta is ice that freezes. He knows it perfectly, and maybe he knows when to let it go. Or maybe, really, too much has been asked, and we risk not tightening anything?
Two weeks ago in the first leg I had provoked on these columns: "Inter, better to lose with Borussia Dortmund". That's why, I knew Conte's telluric power when he approached a goal and didn't reach it …
But then the game also had its course. A great start, sagacity and intelligence, and a Second Half where Inter has shown all its limits. To us journalists, observers, we would say a personality limit, for having believed that the game could continue even to manage, and have underestimated the return of Dortmund. But perhaps it is not so. And it does not show from the other words of Conte, who then said of the drop in his own: "If there is a reason, we will have to find it with the players, because in Sassuolo from 1-4 we are already finished 3-4".
No, it is found in the words of Lautaro Martinez, who just when asked about personality as a possible problem, responded with a lucid analysis that is frightening, and that may sound like damnation. That is to say that the problems to return to the field were: "concentration, order and intelligence".
Mamma mia, a condemnation.
You lost your concentration, you became disunited, you weren't smart enough. All the reasons that really make the champions, in addition to the hunger of Antonio Conte. And on these, in part, Antonio Conte has the margin to influence further, even net of the available forces.
Always, a real great team can be seen from the ability to know how to win away to Europe in the home of great teams.
Inter is a great team under construction, but has not won for its demerits, and therefore still a great team is not.
But even the Inter of Mourinho in the perfection of the Triplete, it took a year and a half to find its size as a child.
Is there really something missing in the programming, or here everyone wants too quickly: the others from Antonio Conte, and Antonio Conte himself from the normal course of events?