CONTE BACK FOR TOTTENHAM AGAINST MILAN IN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

By DANIELLA MATAR AP Sports Writer

AFTER recovering from gallbladder surgery, Tottenham manager Antonio Conte will be back on the sidelines in the Champions League.

Conte’s return for the second leg of the round of 16 against AC Milan today, trailing 1-0 after the first game, is a boost for a team fighting to keep its season on track.

In three days last week, the London team was eliminated from the FA Cup by five-year contract in 2021 was a statement from the Bayern hierarchy that they saw the then-33-year-old German as the architect of a long-term project.

He’s now facing a tough challenge from PSG and also a tight domestic title race, with Bayern even on points with Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga. Both teams are without key second-division club Shef- field United and saw its hopes of securing a Champions League qualifying spot in the Premier League dented by a 1-0 loss to Wolverhampton.

Conte, back after two-and-a-half weeks recuperating in Turin, is focused on the matches ahead.

“We live for this type of game. We live for this type of moment because when the pressure is going up, it means your level is going up,” Conte said yesterday.

“Don’t forget last season we play Conference League players ahead of today’s game. Sadio Mané missed the first leg with the leg injury which previously ruled him out of the World Cup, but the Senegal forward has since returned to action and came off the bench in Bayern’s last two Bundesliga games.

Still, Bayern remains without goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and defender Lucas Hernández, both long-term absentees, and fullback Noussair Mazraoui is in and instead this season we are playing Champions League. We won our group, the first leg we lost 1-0 and we have possibility tomorrow to beat Milan and then to go to the next round.”

Conte’s burst of positivity could help lift the gloom over Tottenham after the disappointment of last week. But they will need more than just that against Milan at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Tottenham had more than 20 attempts on goal at Wolves and will have to be more clinical against a training but has not played since the World Cup. Another defender, Benjamin Pavard, is suspended after he was sent off in stoppage time in the first leg and is set to be replaced by Josip Stanišic.

PSG is without Neymar after the Brazilian was ruled out for the rest of the season on Monday with an ankle injury, but Mbappé and Lionel Messi each scored in the 4-2 win over Nantes on Saturday. Mbappé became the club’s solid Milan team which has proved itself defensively strong of late.

“The pressure is normal and we have to live with this type of pressure,” Conte said. “Maybe if there is one thing that we have to try to improve, the whole environment here, is to live with the pressure. To live with the pressure means to sometimes be a bit stressed and not always to be in peace with yourself, but to stress yourself and to put pressure in a positive way.”

Milan also lost over the weekend — 2-1 at all-time leading scorer with 201 goals, breaking a tie with Edinson Cavani.

Right back Achraf Hakimi is in PSG’s squad for the game after he was given preliminary charges in a rape investigation last week. The 24-year-old Hakimi missed the last three French league games with injury.

In the French legal system, preliminary charges mean judges have strong reason to suspect a crime was committed but are

Fiorentina — but had won its past four matches without conceding a goal.

The Italian champions also have Mike Maignan back. The goalkeeper was a crucial part of Milan’s Serie A-winning campaign last season but has only just returned to action — playing in the past two matches — after five months out with injury.

Milan, though, has struggled on the road. The team has won only one of its past five matches away from San Siro, losing three of the others. Last season, the allowing time for further investigation before deciding whether to send a case to trial.

Speaking yesterday in Munich, both PSG midfielder Marco Verratti and Galtier said they expect a completely different match than last month when Bayern’s pressing suffocated PSG.

Verratti said the return to a tactical system with three defenders will certainly help, as well as the presence of a fully-fit Mbappé team lost only one of its away matches in Serie A while winning 14 of them.

“We’re talking about a statistic that is punishing us a lot,” Milan coach Stefano Pioli said. “It’s strange not managing to win away from home.” alongside Messi. “They are players of a huge experience, that is something that really helps us out,” Verratti said.

Pioli said he already knows what team he will use “more or less,” but Milan could be without Olivier Giroud. The veteran forward missed Monday’s training session with the flu.

Forward Brahim Díaz, who scored the goal in the first leg, is also a doubt.