Sports and passion. For better or for worse, on and off the field. He had been out of the field too long Antonio Conte, who after the European Championships will return to directing the training of a club team day by day, playing a couple of times a week for 10-11 months a year. The former Juventus manager will end his experience as national coach after less than two years and will sit on the Chelsea bench, starting practically from scratch given that next season the London team will be – for the first time in the Abramovich era – out of European competitions. A passion for the pitch, candidly admitted by Conte himself: "I feel I have to go back to being a coach in a club, thus having the opportunity to train every day", he said, adding however that "at the moment our maximum concentration is aimed solely at the European Championship where we will try with work and sacrifice to make the most of our potential. Anyone who knows me knows that my commitment will be total”.
Near the field, possibly inside, he would also like to stay Francesco Totti, who at the dawn of his 40th birthday (he will turn them next September) is about to renew for the umpteenth time with his Roma. For another year as a player or the start of something different? Initially he seemed to have taken the first hypothesis (sensaously, it must be said), after the player's outburst a month ago and with the possibility that the sponsor Nike would take over part of the last year's salary, thanks to the foreseeable sales boom of the last shirt of the Captain. But the declarations of the president James Pallotta leave some doubts on the fact that Totti can still tread a football field, and above all on the fact that he can do it with the only shirt he has so far worn in his career as a footballer: "I would like him to retire and enter to be part of the management – said Pallotta from Boston -, but he would prefer to continue playing. Moving to Miami? Francesco would like to, but the Florida city does not (yet) have a professional team in the MLS. He might also be interested in playing in the New York club ”. “There is incredible pressure to renew him – added the AS Roma president-, but his body no longer allows him to play as before. Think about how to stop”.
Not even the nine-time motorcycle champion would ever want to stop dreaming of a tenth world title Valentino Rossi: he too, at the age of 37, wants to stay on the field, or rather on the track. Passion for the bike and desire to redeem the enormous regret of the last season, which saw the title elude him by very few points with more than a few suspicions about the behavior of Marquez and Lorenzo. A passion that instead – off the track – comes to an end: after five years, the relationship between the champion and his girlfriend, the model Linda Morselli, is over. There are still no official statements and the entourage of the champion, close to the start of the World Championship, closed in strict silence: the two had been together since 2011.
