Milan: Antonio Conte has a lot of work to do. Conte became Napoli’s fifth coach in little more than a year when he was hired in June and on Sunday he saw his new team crumble 3-0 at Hellas Verona in his first match back in Serie A. Dailon Livramento and Daniel Mosquera - twice - scored on their league debuts to hand Verona the win on the opening weekend of the Italian league season and there was further bad news for Napoli as it lost key player Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to injury.
Napoli has been in a slump since Luciano Spalletti left last summer after steering the club to its first title in more than 30 years. The southern team finished 10th last season and it hoped for much better under Conte, who led Juventus and Inter Milan to the title. However, it drew 0-0 with Serie B side Modena in the Italian Cup on Conte’s debut, going through on penalties, before Sunday’s second-half horror show.
Conte’s side had the better of the early stages in Verona and had chances with Matteo Politano, André-Frank Anguissa and Stanislav Lobotka before the home side almost gifted it the lead in first half stoppage-time. Verona defender Martin Frese played a woefully short back pass to goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipò and Kvaratskhelia raced onto it but Jackson Tchatchoua came flying in for a heroic last-ditch tackle. Kvaratskhelia had to come off immediately afterward, appearing to be indicating that he was feeling dizzy.
Frese played another poor back pass moments later that forced Montipo�.