Antonio Conte has a lot of work ahead of him.
Conte, who became Napoli’s fifth coach in just over a year when he was hired in June, saw his new team suffer a 3-0 defeat at Hellas Verona in his first Serie A match on Sunday.
“We melted like snow in the sun after the first goal,” Conte said. “We should apologize to the Neapolitan people, who follow us with passion. As the coach, I take full responsibility. The performance in the second half was unacceptable.
“We should be ashamed, and I have to be ashamed as the coach. Those who know me know that my heart is bleeding today, and I hope some of the players are feeling the same way, which would at least mean we are moving in the right direction.”
Dailon Livramento and Daniel Mosquera — twice — scored on their league debuts to give Verona the win in the first match of the Italian league season. Napoli also faced more trouble with key player Khvicha Kvaratskhelia going off due to injury.
Napoli has struggled since Luciano Spalletti left last summer after winning the club’s first title in over 30 years. The team finished 10th last season and hoped for better results under Conte, who previously led Juventus and Inter Milan to titles.
However, Napoli drew 0-0 with Serie B side Modena in the Italian Cup on Conte’s debut, advancing on penalties, before the disappointing performance on Sunday.
Conte’s team had some good chances early in the match against Verona with Matteo Politano, André-Frank Anguissa, and Stanislav Lobotka, and nearly took the lead in first-half stoppage time.
Verona defender Martin Frese made a poorly short back pass to goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipò, which Kvaratskhelia almost capitalized on, but Jackson Tchatchoua made a crucial last-minute tackle.
Kvaratskhelia had to leave the game right after, appearing to show signs of dizziness.
Frese made another poor back pass shortly after that forced Montipò to make an acrobatic clearance.
Verona came out with a new energy after halftime, and Grigoris Kastanos narrowly missed scoring with its first real chance of the match. Verona took the lead when Livramento managed to finish a cross from Darko Lazović by tapping the ball into the bottom right corner.
Anguissa hit the crossbar in the 61st minute, but Verona doubled its lead when it won the ball in midfield. Ondrej Duda passed it to substitute Mosquera, who scored past Alex Meret in the 75th minute.
Mosquera had been on the field for less than two minutes. The Colombian forward scored again in stoppage time after being left completely unmarked by the Napoli defense.
Verona was one of only two teams to win in the opening round. The other team was Lazio, which came back from an early goal to defeat newly promoted Venezia 3-1.
In Sardinia, both Roma and Cagliari hit the woodwork and had other chances but ended up drawing 0-0. Bologna also drew 1-1 at home against Udinese.
On Saturday, there were four draws, including for defending champion Inter Milan and AC Milan.
Juventus will host Como on Monday, and Atalanta will visit Lecce.
