Conte: Juve like Verona

Antonio Conte believes that should Juventus win the Scudetto this season, then it is a comparable achievement to Hellas Verona’s 1985 title.

The Gialloblu famously won the Italian League that season against all the odds, something that Bianconero Coach Conte says holds similar truth in reflection in 2012 to his Juve side.

The comparison, though, was made after he was pushed for an answer to another subject, the future of strikers Alessandro Del Piero and Marco Borriello at the club beyond the summer.

“Look, we are thinking in the present, their help has given us the opportunity to something incredible this year, something incredible and unthinkable earlier this season, ” deflected the 42-year-old tactician to the assembled media on Tuesday.

“And if we win, I think this is comparable to the League championship of Hellas Verona’s, lest we forget where we have come from.

“So we are thinking about this, let’s concentrate on doing something extraordinary in the League.

“We are building on what we’ve already built that is important, but let’s not lose sight of the goal, because it has not yet been achieved.

“Other things are secondary, they are things we will face when the time comes.”

The Coach went further on this final point, by insisting that Wednesday opponents Lecce, Conte’s home-town club that he also once played for, would need Juve’s full concentration.

“We can’t say Lecce are the final hurdle, because as the previous two games have taught us, we have found teams with the greatest motivation to get a result, as it should be.

“So we will encounter a Lecce who like us have an important goal . We strive for something beautiful, magical, whilst they are after survival. It will be a nice challenge between two teams that still have the greatest motivation.

“We absolutely have to think about us only, though, as I always say, partly because we have nothing in our hands at the moment, except for Champions League qualification and the Coppa Italia final.

“We are looking before we speak, I was taught that you must win before you talk.”

Conte was also asked about the Bianconeri’s possession statistics through the season, where they have averaged the third highest possession in League football across all of Europe.

“The focus on possession was a well-defined concept from day one, that we want to take the game to the opponents and to do so we needed the ball at our feet.

“We have facilitated this task through the players…[Andrea] Pirlo who is great for playing this style of play and allows the team to have peace of mind from this point of view.

“We’ve worked hard on an idea for how to play, how to make the game, to want to keep the ball and all this has been possible thanks to the players.”