Napoli celebrated greatly Friday after winning the Italian league title. Coach Antonio Conte did not think at the beginning of the season that he would win the ‘Scudetto’ with the club from Naples.
“This is the most unexpected and difficult title of my career,” said Conte, who previously won league titles with Juventus, Internazionale, and Chelsea, after the decisive 2-0 victory over Cagliari. “I had to get everything back on track and convince the players to stay after finishing tenth last year.”
Napoli started the season with a 3-0 defeat against Hellas Verona, something Conte had not forgotten. “It has been an incredible journey. In all honesty: it is very difficult to win something at Napoli.”
The desire for a new title was palpable in Stadio Diego Armando Maradona before the kick-off. “I saw all those people and had a hard time. I thought: what if we let these people down tonight? We would be dealing with that for a long time.”
Napoli only needed to win against Cagliari to stay ahead of Internazionale in the last round. That happened, thanks to goals from Romelu Lukaku and Scott McTominay. The latter was named the best player of the season in Serie A.
Conte had to watch the match from the stands because he was suspended after an earlier red card. After the final whistle, he still went onto the field to celebrate the title with the players and the fans. Yet it is by no means certain that Conte will stay. “Only if he wants to serve the club, he is very welcome,” said club president Aurelio De Laurentiis.
The Vrij Accepts Second Place
At Internazionale, disappointment prevailed after missing out on the league title. The club of Dutch internationals Stefan de Vrij and Denzel Dumfries had to hope for a misstep by Napoli but ultimately fell one point short after the 2-0 victory over Como.
De Vrij was at peace with the second place. “We did what we had to do,” he said. “We knew that we were dependent on others tonight and we couldn’t do more than this today. We do feel that we could have done a lot more in the competition.”
For Internazionale, the season is not over yet. The team will play the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain next Saturday. “We must now fully prepare for that,” said De Vrij. “The hunger to win the final is enormous.”