If you are looking for a manager that can bring domestic success to your club, then Antonio Conte is your man.
The Italian, currently in charge of reigning Serie A champions Napoli, is a serial winner of trophies – mostly in Italy but also England.
He has five Scudettos to his name, one Serie B title, three Italian Supercoppas, one Premier League crown, and one FA Cup, in an impressive coaching CV.
But when it comes to the grandest prize in European club football, the Uefa Champions League, Conte's record is surprisingly poor, with the 56-year-old having never made it beyond the quarter-final stage – and that came way back in 2012/13 with Juventus.
On three occasions, he failed to make it out of the group stage – once with Juve and twice with Inter Milan – while he could only manage the last-16 with Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.
On Wednesday, Conte faces former club Chelsea in Naples with the threat of what would be an embarrassing early exit from the competition hanging over him. Napoli currently sit in 25th out of 36 league phase teams, one place outside qualifying for even a play-off spot after winning just two of their seven matches.
One of their three defeats included a 6-2 thrashing at PSV Eindhoven on October 21 that marked the heaviest loss in Napoli's Champions League history, with Conte quick to blame the harrowing defeat on a summer of frantic transfer activity.
“Last year we won a championship where the players pushed themselves to the limit, we had unity in every way,” he said. “In my opinion, nine new players are too many, we were forced to do so. Bringing nine new players into the dressing room isn't easy … This year will be a complex one, we mustn't despair.”
But his team remains frustratingly inconsistent, highlighted by last week's 1-1 draw against an FC Copenhagen side that had captain Thomas Delaney sent off in the 35th minute.
“We were in total control, with 11 men against 10, so even if you’re missing players and feeling fatigue, you have to win these games. You just have to,” Conte said to Sky Sports Italia after the match.
“This has to annoy us, because if it doesn’t, then it means we don’t want to grow and improve. It’s a draw that hurts me.”
Injuries have certainly not helped Napoli's cause with Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, Matteo Politano, Kevin De Bruyne, Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Billy Gilmour all missing Sunday's 3-0 league loss away to Juve.
That defeat against Conte's former club leaves Napoli in fourth place, nine points behind another of his ex-sides in Inter Milan, who top the Serie A table. “Now we’re in a real emergency,” admitted Conte.
“We’re losing players one after another. We’re not talking about short absences: some have had surgery, others have had extended recovery times.”
The was some good news going into the make-or-break Chelsea clash with striker Romelu Lukaku making his first appearance of the season at the weekend, coming off the bench for the last 11 minutes, having been an unused substitute in Copenhagen.
The 32-year-old picked up a serious thigh injury during a pre-season friendly against Olympiacos, one week before the start of the Serie A campaign, which meant Conte lost the services of a player who contributed 14 goals to their title-winning efforts.
Lukaku should be in the mix to take on the club he has twice played for – neither spell can be considered a success – although it will most likely be off the bench again.
In his first stint between 2011 and 2014, the Belgian failed to score in 15 appearances, albeit he spent two of those campaigns on loan at West Bromwich Albion and Everton where he notched 32 Premier League goals in 66 games.
But it will be his second spell, following a club-record £97.5 million move from Conte's Serie A-winning Inter team in 2021, that will likely result in him being met with a hostile reaction from visiting Chelsea fans at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
A relatively disappointing haul of 15 goals in 44 games followed but it was a controversial mid-season interview with Sky Italia that did the damage, when Lukaku criticised manager Thomas Tuchel while also saying he wanted a return to Inter.
Loan deals back at Inter and then with Roma followed before he teamed up with Conte again, this time in Naples in 2024. “I had the opportunity to go back there [to Chelsea] and thought I would be a hero, but that wasn’t the case,” he admitted on his return to Inter in 2022.
Conte's own break up with Chelsea was messy, to say the least. After leading the London club to league and cup glory over two seasons, he was sacked ahead of the 2018/19 season.
He went on to successfully sue the club for wrongful dismissal with Chelsea paying out a mammoth £26.6m in compensation to him and his coaching staff.
They may now have different owners – with the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium taking over from Roman Abramovich in 2022 – but the managerial merry-go-round goes on at Stamford Bridge.
Despite winning the Europa Conference League and Fifa Club World Cup last year, Conte's countryman Enzo Maresca was sacked on January 1 with Liam Rosenior taking over.
Victory in Italy will secure Chelsea an automatic pass into the last 16, avoiding the play-offs, while also providing the latest sorry chapter to Conte's frustrating story in the competition.
