Antonio Conte has been away from Italy for over a year now, but at times it feels like he never left. In part, that's because of how closely his work at Chelsea is followed back home. There were times last season when Chelsea games drew higher audience figures than some Serie A matches on Sky Italia.
Maybe it was the job Conte did with Italy at Euro 2016? Maybe it's because he is no longer stopping other teams winning the Scudetto. But appreciation for Conte extends far beyond the cult hero personality he established among Juventus fans.
The mark he left was so profound it's rare to have a conversation about football in Italy without mentioning Conte. Look at the title race at the moment: Napoli won their first eight games of the season and look unstoppable. But that's what they said about Rudi Garcia's Roma who set a record to win their first 10 in 2013, only for Conte's Juventus to overtake them and become the first team to break the 100 point barrier.
Inter Milan are still unbeaten and finally look like they're back after six years in the wilderness. A lot was expected of new manager Luciano Spalletti because of what he achieved at Roma but everyone knows he wasn't Inter's first choice. That was Conte.
Another day, another Milan defeat brings with it speculation about Vincenzo Montella's future and how, if he were sacked, the club wouldn't want to miss out on the chance to appoint Conte now or at the end of the season. Better to promote from within then and make Rino Gattuso caretaker in the meantime.
It is a fire that won't go out. Just when you think it's about to extinguish, someone tosses one of these logs on to keep it alive: Conte landed a pay rise but didn't extend his contract at Chelsea. Once asked about the chances of managing Inter, Milan, Roma or Lazio, Conte said "never say never" because he's "a professional." And if Leonardo Bonucci crossed the divide, why can't he? Surely Bonucci's move makes the Milan job more appealing. Milan have also been built to play 3-4-2-1, the system Conte uses at Chelsea. He has "nostalgia" for Italy.
For some it's as simple as two plus two. For others the working is wrong and you get five. But this is the context. There is a longing to see Conte back in Italy again and it's not difficult to understand why. The national team he made greater than the sum of its parts now feels a lot less even with the emergence of players like Andrea Belotti.
September's 3-0 defeat to Spain -- barely a year after Conte knocked La Roja out of the Euros -- brought on a wistfulness Giampiero Ventura is both irritated by and struggling to shift. Italy's need of a playoff for the first time in 20 years to make the 2018 World Cup has cast the job Conte did in an even better light and the desire to see him step in for the two games against Sweden has not gone unexpressed.
As for Serie A, the prospect of him taking down the monster he created at Juventus (and making Milan great again) never ceases to fascinate, especially given how cold things are with Conte and president Andrea Agnelli who had a thinly veiled pop at him during last week's shareholders meeting.
Agnelli praised current coach Massimiliano Allegri for taking on a project that "to others seemed finished." Conte famously questioned Juventus' ability to equip the team to compete in the Champions League; he said it was like eating out at a restaurant where dinner is €100 a head with just €10 in his pocket. Even if they didn't win the trophy, as you can imagine, reaching two Champions League finals in the three years has been of great satisfaction to the hierarchy Conte doubted.
While grateful to Conte for taking them back to the top in Serie A, the Juventus board has not forgotten the compromising position he put them in after promising to see out the final year of his contract only to walk out two days into preseason in 2014 and then, unexpectedly, take the Italy job. Reacting to Agnelli's comment in a Facebook post, Conte wrote: "You never stop getting to know people. At times a little recognition is enough. And maturity."
Shaun Brooks/Action Plus via Getty Images
The idea of Conte making a pact with Milan and the potential reckoning with his old club certainly captures the imagination. But for now that's all it is: an idea. While Conte has opened up about missing Italy and not wanting to be abroad for too long, his wife and daughter have now moved to England and, hard though it is to disregard the tension over transfer strategy, you still feel Chelsea is the best place for him at the moment.
Financially speaking they're more stable than Milan and currently in the Champions League too -- where Conte's travails with Juventus arguably stopped people outside of Italy recognising his brilliance sooner. For all his complaints about a lack of economic might at Juventus, the counter-argument to his explanations came in the appearance of Atletico Madrid and Borussia Dortmund in recent finals on smaller budgets.
It's time Conte left the same impression on the Champions League he made at Euro 2016 where you felt an unfancied Italy would have won the tournament had they prevailed on penalties against Germany.
The win away to Atleti felt like a big step in the right direction; another in Rome would too, particularly bearing in mind how well Roma performed in a 3-3 draw at Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago. It would also do nothing to dampen the enthusiasm to see Conte back in Italy. If he's nostalgic for his homeland, the Italian people are even more so for him.
Source: espn.co.uk