Conte's continental failings revealed ahead of Tottenham's Champions League return

Tottenham are gearing up for their first Champions League campaign in three seasons with momentum in their side and expectation levels high.

Much of that is down to head coach Antonio Conte, who brought Spurs back into Europe's elite club competition in his first half season in charge of the north London club.

Conte has a CV that is the envy of many managers around the world, with the Italian having won eight major trophies during his coaching career, including five top-flight league titles in two countries.< /p>

But Conte's domestic success has not transferred to the European stage, having left the Champions League in the group stages more times than he has advanced, despite managing some of the clubs in elite of the continent.

Ahead of Tottenham's Group D opener against Marseille on Wednesday, in which Conte will become the fourth manager to take charge of more than one English club in the competition, Stats Perform examines the 53 player's disappointing record years.

ONE KNOCKOUT VICTORY

Tottenham will be the fourth team Conte will take charge of in the Champions League after Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. He managed 36 games for those three heavyweight teams, but only won 12 for a 33% win rate.

To put this in some context, this compares to a 65% win rate in the Premier League (over a much wider sample of games) and a 68% win rate in Serie A.

Breaking that European record even further, Conte has won six of his 16 appearances as Juve boss in the competition and just three each with Chelsea and Inter in eight and 12 appearances respectively.

These wins with Juve, Inter and Chelsea, if you were wondering, were against Celtic (twice), Qarabag (twice), Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Chelsea, Copenhagen, Nordsjaelland, Shakhtar Donetsk and Slavia Prague.

Conte's best run in the UEFA Elite Club Tournament remains his debut campaign when he took Juve to the quarter-finals in the 2012-13 season, where their title winners were largely beaten by Bayern Munich in two legs.

Remarkably, this season's 5-0 aggregate win over Celtic in the Round of 16 remains Conte's only success in the Champions League knockout stage.

It was one of only two occasions in five attempts that a Conte side had gone beyond the first round, in fact, the other being the 2017-18 season when Chelsea finished second behind Roma in the group and was later eliminated. by Barcelona in the round of 16.

Conte was unable to guide Juve out of the group stage in 2013-14, failing to finish past Galatasaray for second place behind Real Madrid, and also dropped to first obstacle in successive seasons with Inter.

EXCUSED, EXCUSED

But why exactly has one of the best managers of his generation struggled so much when it comes to balancing domestic and European football?

One suggestion is that, like many Italian managers, Conte prioritizes league titles over continental cups, but the Spurs boss laughed off the idea at a press conference on Tuesday and pointed out the success of his compatriot Carlo Ancelotti, the winner of more European Cups than any other coach.

"Success in Europe with a trophy is important for every manager," added Conte when asked about his disappointing record in the Champions League. “You know very well that it is not simple, not easy to lift a trophy in Europe and especially in the Champions League.

"It's important to be there and you have more chances if you are the coach of a team that expects to win. Two years ago, with Inter, we lost the Europa League final against Sevilla. Of course, in my heart, in my mind, in my ambition, there is the desire to be successful in Europe."

Conte did indeed reach the Europa League final with Inter in the 2019-20 season, but even that can be seen as a disappointment as a much-loved Nerazzurri lost to Sevilla in the final and wasn't in the competition only by virtue of their early elimination in the Champions League.

Another theory, put forward by Conte himself, is that his teams simply don't have the depth to handle demanding runs in multiple competitions.

"Some big mistakes were made at the planning stage; we can't play both the Champions League and Serie A with such a small squad," Conte told AFP two years ago. occasion of Inter's second consecutive exit in the group stage.

"I'm tired of repeating the same things over and over again. Maybe the [club managers] could come here and say something. Hope this helps them understand some things."

SIXTH LUCKY TIME WITH SPURS?

Handing the blame to those higher up is way out of Conte's playbook, a classic ploy typically used to help gain traction as the transfer window approaches.

But following a busy few months of transfer activity at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, I...