FLORENCE, Italy (Reuters) – After Napoli earned an important win over Fiorentina to go top of the Serie A standings on Saturday their manager Antonio Conte did not appear at the post-game press conference following the death of a young fan of his team.
Conte’s side strolled to a 3-0 victory in Florence, opening a three-point lead over Atalanta who have a game in hand, and his assistant Cristian Stellini explained why the manager decided not to discuss it.
“We are very happy for the win, but this afternoon we received a terrible blow,” Stellini told Dazn.
“We lost a person very dear to us, very close to all of Napoli, a child who was sick and to whom we tried to give moments of joy and who gave us a lot of strength in return.
“The manager was not up to coming to speak about the game. Our thoughts go to the little fan, his family and to all the children who suffer with serious illnesses from which they cannot recover, the message is for them,” he added.
“We say farewell to little Daniele.”
Stellini described the win as important, especially with Napoli missing Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Matteo Politano and Alessandro Buongiorno through injury.
“It is fair to call it very important, for various reasons,” he told a press conference.
“The first is that we were on a difficult pitch against a strong team with a very large squad.
“And then the second is that we had some absentees and wanted to show the importance of our work and how much the guys follow us, that is even more important.”
Those injuries gave Leonardo Spinazzola a rare start this season, a player linked with a move away from Napoli in the January transfer window.
“We have a lot of players and without too many games it’s not easy to rotate everyone,” Stellini said.
“Precisely for this reason we have to congratulate guys like him, Juan Jesus, Giacomo Raspadori and Rafael Marin. They work to improve both themselves and the squad.”
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Ed Osmond)
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