MILAN (AP) — Antonio Conte has a lot of work ahead of him.

Conte became Naples’ fifth coach in just over a year, when he was hired in June and on Sunday he saw his new team lose 3-0 at Hellas Verona in his first game back in Serie A.

“We melted like snow in the sun after the first goal,” said Conte. “We should apologize to the Neapolitan people who follow us with passion. I am the coach and it is right that I take full responsibility. In the second half there was an unacceptable performance.”

“We should be ashamed, and I have to be ashamed as a coach. Anyone who knows me knows that my heart is bleeding today, and I hope that some of my players are bleeding too. That would mean that we are at least on the right track.”

Dailon Livramento and Daniel Mosquera (twice) scored on their league debuts to give Verona victory on the opening weekend of the Italian League season and there was more bad news for Napoli as key player Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was out through injury.

Napoli has been stuck Luciano Spalletti has left last summer after leading the club to their first title in over 30 years. The southern team finished 10th last season and were hoping for much better results under Conte, who had led Juventus and Inter Milan to the title.

However, in Conte’s debut in the Italian Cup, the Italians drew 0-0 with Serie B team Modena and only progressed on penalties before a horror show in the second half on Sunday.

Conte’s team had the better of the early stages in Verona, creating chances through Matteo Politano, André-Frank Anguissa and Stanislav Lobotka before the home side almost gave them the lead in first-half stoppage time.

Verona defender Martin Frese played a frighteningly short back pass to goalkeeper Lorenzo Montipò and Kvaratskhelia ran off, but Jackson Tchatchoua came flying and made a heroic tackle at the last second.

Kvaratskhelia had to leave the field immediately afterwards, apparently citing dizziness.

A moment later, Frese played another bad back pass, forcing Montipò to make an acrobatic save.

Verona came out of the break a changed team and Grigoris Kastanos shot just wide of the far post with his first real chance of the game before the home side took the lead when Livramento connected well enough with Darko Lazović’s cross to fire the ball into the bottom right corner.

Anguissa hit the crossbar in the 61st minute, but Verona doubled their lead when they won possession in a midfield scramble and Ondrej Duda passed it on to substitute Mosquera in the 75th minute, who fired the ball past Alex Meret and into the net.

Mosquera had only been on the field for less than two minutes and the Colombian striker doubled his goal tally during the stoppages as he was left completely unmarked by the Napoli defence.

Verona were one of only two teams to win in the first round so far, the other being Lazio, who recovered from an early goal to beat newly promoted Venezia 3-1.

In Sardinia, both Roma and Cagliari hit the woodwork and had further chances, but could only manage a 0-0 draw. Bologna played 1-1 at home to Udinese.

There was four draws on Saturdayincluding defending champions Inter Milan and AC Milan.

Juventus hosts Como on Monday and Atalanta visits Lecce.

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