Antonio Conte, coach of S.S.C. Napoli, participates in the 12th day of the Serie A Championship between S.S.C. Napoli and Atalanta B.C. at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium in Naples, Italy, on November 22, 2025. (Photo by Domenico Cippitelli/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
It can often be said Antonio Conte isn’t the most flexible of coaches.
Serial Scudetto winner though he may be, Conte has been accused of being somewhat rigid in his approach to games, often lacking an in-game alternative should plan A not go according to plan.
Conte’s teams over the years have often been systemised, with repeated patterns of play rehearsed time and again until they become second nature.
When those patterns work, they can be breathtakingly brilliant. Yet when they can’t, Conte has often found himself scratching his head for adjustments.
This has been the case on European nights, with his record in the Champions League for a manager of his caliber shockingly poor.
Conte, it’s been said, prefers the marathon-style format of a league to the sprint of cup competitions. His stellar league record would point to this: titles with Juventus, Chelsea, Inter and Napoli is vindication of a man who has few equals in the world game.
Yet the accusation that Conte can be rigid tactically isn’t really accurate: He started his time at Juve in a 4-3-3 but pivoted to a 3-5-2 and later to a 4-4-2 diamond to make the most of the talent he had at his disposal.
At Chelsea he morphed from a 4-2-4 to a 4-3-3 and finally to a 3-4-3 after a humiliating defeat to Arsenal. The switch worked wonders and Conte went on to win the league in his first season in the Premier League.
It was perhaps only at Inter where he remained resolutely rigid, utilising his favoured 3-5-2 throughout his two-year stint and rarely deviating. Yet he still won a title at the end of his second campaign, ending Juve’s nine-year dominance of the Italian game that he’d in fact started in 2012.
At Napoli, Conte has altered formation depending on availability of his players. He’s went from a 4-3-3 to a straight 4-4-2 via the trusted 3-5-2.
The injury to Kevin De Bruyne has seen Conte revert back to the 4-3-3, and the performance against Atalanta was one of the best of the season.
Moreover, Conte made some big changes. Perhaps in view of the Champions League or the fact that he’s been in a poor run of form lately, Matteo Politano was dropped for David Neres on the right.
On the opposite flank, Noa Lang, the big-money signing from PSV Eindhoven who’s hardly had a look in this season, was also handed a start.
The end result was one of Napoli’s best performances of the season.
The home side crushed La Dea 3-1 at the Stadio Diego Maradona. Neres scored twice, his first goals since January, while Lang got his head to score on his full debut.
Napoli, who’d looked methodically slow in the opening months of the season, played with a verve and a pace that had been sorely lacking.
Granted, Atalanta have been in poor form this season and look lightyears away from past glories under Gian Piero Gasperini, but the manner in which Napoli took them apart will have no doubt pleased Conte.
Conte is still figuring out his Napoli team in this second season, the arrival of many new faces has complicated his task. But the win over Atalanta could prove to be a landmark game in the course of the season.
Should Neres and Lang start against Qarabaag in Europe this week and perform well, then this could be the path going forward.