The match will mark the first in charge for new Roma coach Claudio Ranieri - and Conte is wary of facing his long time friend and confidant.
Are you proud of everything you have already achieved? Or do you still need to be completely proud?
"There are many teams in just a few points, we are doing well but so are the others, there is not another one that has dropped away. There is a bit of surprise perhaps in seeing some teams up there in the standings after 12 days. There are so many in just a few points that one would have a hard time even listing them".
It's a fascinating match, you friend Ranieri says, but it's also a trap. Who risks more?
"It's a football match, we're not risking our lives (laughs, ed.), it's a sporting risk. Whoever can come out of it is less happy... I'm certainly pleased to meet Claudio, there's great respect for him, even friendship.
"I'm happy for him, I thought he would return for a national team, but the window of the heart for Roma and Cagliari was always open and I'm happy for him, for his family, they live in Rome. It will be a tough match, let's not forget that Roma finished ahead of us last year, they're in the Europa League, they had a great transfer market, but they're not performing as expected and as expected. I hope everyone starts to function after Napoli."
Your words on VAR have opened a discussion, do you think it can change something?
"I don't know, honestly. I raised a constructive discussion, to build something better, surely today there are means that must make us reflect. After Mariani decided, I didn't think there was contact with the VAR, but in the recording the VAR limits itself to saying that there is contact, but football is a contact sport. If we want to talk on a constructive level, and not polemically, we must give better help to Mariani than at San Siro. You limit yourself to saying that there is contact, but what contact? Light, slight? It's not volleyball?
"I hope everyone has thought about it, even themselves. Use it better, give help to the referee, at that moment the referee may have seen something, the technological tool must help. It's simple. One can say there is contact, but come and evaluate whether to confirm it or remove it. I understand the referees who, as soon as they are called, say 'here he will change the decision immediately', but you see it and you can confirm or change it.
"I'm sorry, Mariani had conducted the match well, today I realize that no one helped him. Then maybe he would have seen it again and confirmed, I would have accepted it, today we will never know what he would have thought. Mariani is not to be censored, but those who did not give Mariani the opportunity to confirm or change. Here everything is seen as controversy in the broadcasts, I hope my words are constructive. But for the good of all the teams."