“For sure, it was one of the toughest moments of my life,” said Conte.

“Gianluca Vialli, I had an important relationship with him. I met him three weeks before he died to have dinner with my wife and I keep that moment in my heart. And Gian Piero. In only six days (he died). It was really difficult to face this situation, also the death of Sinisa.

“When this type of situation happens, you can have horrible thoughts. You think about what can happen to another person very close to you, or if it can happen to you. It was a really difficult moment, with the Tottenham players too when Gian Piero died. We tried to overcome it, but I felt that also the players felt this horrible situation.”

After just a few weeks, Conte was forced to rest, when he required emergency surgery to remove his gallbladder.

“It was an important period with the Champions League, the FA Cup and with the league,” he recalled.

“I preferred to come back quickly, but then I understood it was really soon. It was Daniel Levy who pushed me to go home and recover again. After the Milan game, when we lost 1-0 in San Siro, he told me to stay in Italy to recover well because he didn’t like the way I looked and Tottenham’s doctors didn’t want me to take the risk. The club supported me really well.”

Conte added that his time at Tottenham will remain in his heart but insisted he feels expectations to win. He also spoke about his two-year spell in charge of Chelsea, saying that he had opened talks to sign both Virgil Van Dijk and Romelu Lukaku in 2017.

Conte has been linked with Milan, Napoli and Roma and is expected to return to Serie A in the summer, more than a year after his Tottenham exit in March 2023.