Conte hints at Napoli exit
Antonio Conte has suggested a Napoli exit could be on the cards for him at the end of the Serie A season, thanking president Aurelio De Laurentiis for the chance to lead the club.
Napoli won 3-0 at Pisa to secure qualification for next season's Champions League, with one game left to play in 2025-2026 – at home to Udinese next week.
Conte led the Partenopei to their fourth Scudetto in 2024-2025, having taken over a team that endured a miserable title defence in 2023-2024 and finished 10th in the table.
Conte's future has been the subject of debate since Italy parted company with Gennaro Gattuso in the wake of its failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, as he has been touted for a return to the Azzurri job after he led them between 2014 and 2016.
Conte suggested his job at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona could be done, saying: "There is one more match to go.
"I have a friendly rapport with the president. The President has known my thoughts for a month already. We talked about the positive things, and the less positive things.
"The rapport with him is very calm, he always put his faith in me, regardless of what will happen next year.
"I will always be grateful to him for having been given the opportunity to coach a club like this. You really need to be on the Napoli bench to understand what that means.
"I always said, winning and celebrating at Napoli is the best thing in the world, it is worth 10 times as much as at any other club."
Reflecting on his time with the club, Conte added: "I arrived at Napoli during a moment of extreme difficulty, after the team finished in 10th place with a sense of depression around the club.
"I had promised that, in the moment that my experience at Napoli was finished, I would leave behind a solid and ambitious group, capable of fighting and of always causing problems for its opponents.
"Remember I always said, we might not be the strongest team, but we must become the toughest. Napoli must cause problems every year for Juventus, Milan and Inter."
Napoli has qualified for the Champions League in four of the last five seasons.
