It had been almost 60 years since an Inter Milan coach won his first game in charge by four clear goals. Never one to get too carried away, Antonio Conte resorted, as he did at Chelsea, to one of those pyrotechnical metaphors he’s so fond of. “Sparks aren’t enough,” he growled. “We have to be dynamite.”



The crowd at San Siro were already blown away. Inter supporters had spent the last 18 months whistling Antonio Candreva, fed up with the wing-back’s wayward crossing and predictable decision-making. So imagine the reaction when he scored a screamer from 35 yards to round off an emphatic win over Lecce. Candreva looked like he couldn’t believe it himself, his incredulous reaction instantly becoming a meme.



“You all think I show up and everything I touch turns into a swan,” Conte later said. Well, yes, what else do you expect after the transformation of an ugly duckling like Candreva.



For starters,...