Gianfranco Zola: Antonio Conte is like Guardiola, Simeone and Mourinho - he will bring success to Chelsea

Vaishali Bhardwaj5 April 2016

Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola has backed Antonio Conte to bring a new cycle of success to the club after comparing him to the likes of Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone.

Chelsea announced on Monday that Conte, who is currently in charge of the Italy national team, will take over from Guus Hiddink at Stamford Bridge following the end of the European Championships this summer.

The Italian will arrive at the club needing to use his previous experience of leading Juventus to three successive Serie A titles to get the club back on track following a disastrous season which has seen Chelsea fail to defend their Premier League crown while being knocked out of the FA Cup and Champions League recently too.

With the Blues looking unlikely to secure European football for next season, the task at hand for Conte is huge - but Zola believes the 46-year-old will have no problem in achieving success in his first job in England.

Zola, who now coaches Al Arabi in the Middle East, told beIN Sports: "He is a great coach, has done so well in Italy, he has some very good qualities, strong character and is the man who can start a new cycle (of success) for Chelsea so I hope things go well for him.

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"He has very strong ideas, very determined and is very disciplined. He will bring all these qualities to Chelsea and hopefully he will be able to integrate into the culture.

"He has already coached in Italy, all these things, the language, they can influence the results, but he will bring self discipline and determination, as well as tactical awareness and all these things can be good for Chelsea.

"Conte is one of those managers like Guardiola, like Simeone, like Mourinho. They have got the careers to manage big teams. The results will tell us whether it is right or not but I really hope so."

He added: "You have to get into the language, the culture of the people. It can be very quick, it depends on you. But he’s a very intelligent person so I’m sure it will be very quick and I think he will have the support of a great club and this is very, very important."

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