Aurelio De Laurentiis was thousands of miles from Naples, on a red carpet in Los Angeles, yet the conversation quickly drifted back to Italian football’s most combustible subject: Antonio Conte and the Azzurri.
During the screening of Napoli’s ‘AG4IN’ documentary, the club president was asked the question many in Italy have been whispering for weeks – could Conte really leave his project in Naples to take charge of the national team for a second time?
De Laurentiis didn’t flinch.
“Conte to the national team? Yes, I think I’d lend him if he asked me,” he said, as quoted by Gianluca Di Marzio.
One line, and the speculation machine roared back into life.
Torn between Naples and the nation
Conte is the beating heart of Napoli’s current sporting project, the man De Laurentiis handpicked to drag the club back into the Scudetto fight. The Partenopei sit second in Serie A, seven points behind leaders Inter Milan, and remain very much in the title race.
De Laurentiis knows exactly what Conte means to that ambition. He also understands the gravitational pull of the Azzurri bench for an Italian coach.
So he struck a careful balance: publicly open to the idea, privately aware of the risk.
He made it clear he would not be the one to slam the door on Conte’s national-team dreams. Yet he also cast doubt on whether Conte would actually walk through it under the current conditions.
A blistering verdict on FIGC
The real sting came when De Laurentiis turned his gaze on the FIGC.
“Until there’s a serious partner, I think he’d refrain from imagining himself leading something completely disorganized,” he warned.
That was not a passing remark. It was a direct hit on the state of the federation in the wake of Gabriele Gravina’s resignation and a pointed reminder that the national team job is about more than just tactics and training sessions.
Conte, in De Laurentiis’ eyes, would demand structure, clarity, and a credible project. Right now, the president clearly believes those elements are missing.
A name for the new era
De Laurentiis didn’t stop at criticism. He came armed with a solution.
The Napoli chief threw his weight behind Giovanni Malagò, the former CONI president, as the man to lead Italian football into its next chapter.
“He would be perfect to be first the commissioner and then the president of a new federation,” De Laurentiis said.
It was a strong endorsement and a clear attempt to shape the debate over who should rebuild the FIGC from the top down. In his vision, Conte’s potential return to the national team is tied directly to that reconstruction.
No new order, no Conte. At least not yet.
Conte’s present is still Napoli blue
For all the noise, one reality remains: Conte is locked in on Napoli’s season.
The club’s immediate horizon is not Coverciano, but Parma on Sunday. With Inter seven points clear, every game now carries the weight of a must-win if Napoli are to keep real pressure on Simone Inzaghi’s side.
Rumours of a second Conte stint with Italy will swirl, grow, and fade, only to resurface with every international break and every FIGC twist. De Laurentiis has ensured that.
But until the federation finds its new leadership and offers the kind of structure both he and Conte demand, the coach’s job is simpler, if no less intense: keep Napoli in the hunt, keep the title race alive, and force Italy to come calling from a position of strength, not uncertainty.
