Italy vs Germany preview: 'There is no tomorrow for the losers, life only goes on for the winners,' says Antonio Conte

What is most striking about Conte is the clarity of his thinking, and he walked into the Italy job knowing exactly what he needed to do

(Getty)

Antonio Conte could hardly have been more flattering about the team he is about to face tonight. “Germany are a very strong side from every perspective,” he said, at his pre-match press conference at the Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux. “They have everything a strong side can possess: technique talent, tactics, power, organisation. It is little wonder they are world champions. They are the most complete side in the world at the moment.”

Then Conte paid them the biggest compliment of all, the one that gets to the heart of what international football is all about, and also the basis for any Italian challenge tonight. “Germany are closer to a club side, as opposed to just a selection of players.”

This is, for Conte, the essence of international football, and the mission he has set himself in his two years in charge of Italy. He knows that there is nothing he can do about the players at his disposal, and the fact that he will go into tonight’s quarter-final under-matched in terms of firepower. All he can fall back on is his remarkable body of work.

The story of the last two years has been the intense imposition by Conte of his values on this Italian team. Some teams take years to develop, and Loew has spent 10 years fine-tuning and adjusting this Germany team, one player in here, one player out there. It has been a gradual iterative process which of course culminated in the 2014 World Cup win in Brazil.

That is not Conte’s approach. He is not a 10-year coach. He stormed out of Juventus in 2014, angry about a lack of investment in the transfer market and the fear that Arturo Vidal was to be sold to Manchester United. He had just built the first great Juventus team since calciopoli but he abandoned it all on a point of principle.

Conte was always going to return to club management, he was too good and too young not to. But in 2014 he needed a project and the Italian national team, out of the World Cup at the group stage, needed a leader. So in came Conte, full of frustrated energy and with a point to prove.

What is most striking about Conte is the clarity of his thinking, and he walked into the Italy job knowing exactly what he needed to do. “The only route forward to achieve success is to try to be a club,” as he puts it. “I have waged a battle over the last two years to make people realise this.” He knows that Loew’s Germany are ahead of him in these stakes, and hopes that he can catch up.

The only thing Conte can do to bridge that gap is work. Over the course of two years he has tried to squeeze in a whole decade’s worth of management, changing players and systems until he found the right combination.

Then, over the last few weeks at Italy’s base in Montpellier, he has been ferocious: physical training in the morning, with running far more intense than most international coaches would demand of their players. Then tactical work in the afternoon, dragging players to their precise positions on the pitch. Much of this is done in secret, so desperate is Conte for his specific plans not to leak. When the players finally tire it is into the video room for detailed tactical analysis. “We have studied them,” Conte smiled, “we have worked a great deal on that side of things. We have prepared for this match.”

These are the preparations that saw Conte create a tactical plan which made Vicente Del Bosque’s Spain side look utterly clueless at the Stade de France on Monday afternoon. Italy play an intense, physical and direct game – entirely in the image of their manager – attacking in a 3-3-4, defending in 5-3-2. Their 2-0 defeat of Spain was the best performance of the tournament, a tactical education, as they shredded the reigning European champions in the first half and held them at arm’s length in the second.

Conte is ferociously proud of what he has done with this team, derided beforehand as lacking the talent required to make an impact on the tournament. Conte knows that team-work, spirit and intelligence can short-circuit everything else. That is what he means by playing like a club.

“Everyone thought it was a dark time for talent in Italy,” Conte said, scorning those who doubted him. “We have shown that with hard work, organisation and 23 players who are very willing to work hard, we are able to overcome obstacles that looked too hard at the start. We did something extraordinary against Spain, and tomorrow we have to do something extraordinary.”

It is all very different from Germany, the world champions, the team that has had the same coach for a decade and many of the same players since the 2010 World Cup. They are the favourites, the glamour side, the best attacking team here. And yet tonight in Bordeaux they know that they are going to face the game of their lives, against a side who have a far superior record against them in competitive internationals.

Antonio Conte is widely regarded as the best coach at Euro 2016 (Getty)

Mesut Ozil said that his team must focus on themselves and play their natural game. “As a player you have to be professional and believe you can overcome that,” he said. “We want to prove it’s possible to play differently and win against Italy. We have positive thinking and we are convinced we can reach our goals.”

The question, then, in the game that feels like the final of this tournament, is whether Italy will let them. Will Germany’s 10 years of serene development make them too slick, too advanced for the side that Conte has thrown together? Or will the power of his personality drive the Italians on to spot Germany’s weakness, their perceived complacency, and go in for the kill?

Eleven Italian players are one yellow card away from a suspension but Conte cannot let them bother him. The only things that matter are the team and the result. Everything else is noise. “It should not be a concern that we have so many players one booking away from a suspension,” he said. “Because there is no tomorrow for the losers. Life only goes on for the winners.”