Antonio Conte is a serial winner using the secrets he learned at Juventus to turn Chelsea into a trophy machine

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Antonio Conte tells his friends he does not sleep after defeat because it feels like he is dying. Winning? Well, winning charges through his body and feels like life.

Conte named his daughter Vittoria, and the literal translation from Italian is victory. 'How could I choose another name?' he smiled when he shared his happy news with colleagues.

These are the levels of obsession you reach when an athlete with a natural desire to win is soaked for many years in the Juventus way.  

Antonio Conte has led his Chelsea team to 12 straight wins, and the top of the Premier League

Conte won three consecutive Serie A titles in his three years as Juventus manager

To her very core, the Old Lady of Italian football is all about the relentless pursuit of victory, even to the extreme point of domination.

'Win the Scudetto? There's the Champions League,' Marcelo Lippi once said. 'Win the Champions League? There's the Inter-Continental Cup. Win the Inter-Continental Cup? There's the Scudetto to win again. There's little time for celebration.'

These words from Lippi are embossed on the wall beside the entrance to the glittering trophy room of the museum attached to the new Juventus Stadium.

Conte carries this spirit inside him from his 16 years in the black-and-white side of Turin.

As an influential midfielder and often captain during the golden Lippi era he learned how to win and converted it successfully into a method of coaching.

Three years as manager at Juventus were defined by long unbeaten sequences, devastating winning bursts and ripped-up record books. 

Four months into his first season as Chelsea manager and he has already set a club record with 12 successive league victories. 

As a player Conte learned under Marcelo Lippi in a golden era of success for the Old Lady

The Italian was an influential midfielder and often captain in his playing days

Success was bred into Conte as a player, and he has taken that on into his management

If the football's on, it's on

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His team will equal Arsenal's record of 13 straight wins in a single Premier League season if Chelsea beat Stoke on Saturday.

These victories are fuelling him and yet his eyes are fixed on the prizes at the end of the season. True to the Juventus tradition, the first serious target is always the title.

As boss, he led Juve to their first hat-trick of Serie A titles since the 1930s, clinching the third with a record 102 points. They won all 19 home games and took a grip on the title with 12 wins in a row from October to January.

In the same way this 12-match Chelsea run emerged from the wreckage of a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal, the Juventus run began when they threw away a two-goal lead to lose 4-2 at Fiorentina, conceding four goals in 15 minutes.

Even at the season's end, Conte refused to ease up, winning the last seven games to smash the 100-points barrier and finish 17 clear of runners-up Roma. 

The Italian shows off the trophy with his wife and daughter after his first Serie A title

There are parallels between Conte's Juve and the Chelsea team he is now building

Ahead of the final game, against Cagliari, he exploded in a rage and branded Gianluigi Buffon 'stupid' when the veteran goalkeeper and team captain had the temerity to interrupt a video-analysis meeting to raise the subject of bonuses.

Conte's sights were set on the record points haul and he refused to tolerate the idea long since lodged in Italian football culture of coasting through the meaningless fixtures at the end of the season.

He was about to depart for the Italy job and wanted to leave with Juventus trampling on a scene of devastation. They won 3-0.

In his first season as Juve boss, his team became the first to survive unbeaten throughout a 38-game Serie A campaign and reached the Italian Cup final before losing to Napoli. They won 10 of the last 11 games and conceded just 20 goals.

Their form continued, winning nine of the first 10 games of his second season, despite him serving a touchline ban for match-fixing, something which he was later cleared of in court. 

Conte was unbeaten for his first 48 league games as manager and led all the way from the front to claim his second title, with his defence recording 19 clean sheets. 

Conte once exploded in a rage at goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon for not focussing on a game

Conte and Buffon, who had already clinched the title, went on to win the following game 3-0 

Conte hugs Michy Batshuayi, who he has kept onside despite a lack of playing time this season

Parallels have taken shape at Chelsea since he knocked the team into his favourite shape and his infectious winning mentality took hold. Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has been beaten just twice during the run of 12 wins, once by Gary Cahill, one of his own defenders.

Conte is fiercely driven. His passion connected him instantly to the fans who now sing his name when he would much rather hear them serenading his players.

Inside the club, he is popular, with a human touch to soften a ferocious work ethic. He arrived early one morning before Christmas to leave bottles of wine and Prosecco on the desks of all staff in the first-team building, together with a hand-written note thanking them for their efforts and promising they could achieve something great together.

The players will claim he understands the pressures of being an elite footballer and, while he is all about winning, he never fails to mention the pain of defeat.

Before the trip to Manchester City earlier this month he dodged comparisons to Pep Guardiola with a disarming reference to the major finals he lost as a player. As a coach, he has yet to achieve success on an international scale and for this reason refuses to accept he is on a level with Guardiola or Jose Mourinho. 

Conte dwells on every defeat, disappointment pushing him to keep on winning

He reached the last eight of the Champions League during his second year at Juventus, having helped eliminate champions Chelsea in the group stage. A year later, Juve failed to reach the knockout rounds.

Conte dwells on defeat as if picking at a scar. Maybe it keeps him fresh and focused. Remember how you feel, the players often say when they've lost a big one. It is one of the mantras of sports psychology at an elite level.

Conte refuses to forget how it feels. It feels like death. Maybe it is part of the secret to his drive and his relentless obsession with victory.