Italy national team coach Marcello Lippi lost his temper after being grilled by the press following his side’s 1-1 draw in a World Cup qualifier against Scotland at the weekend.
Lippi reacted angrily when he spotted a cameraman filming him in a corridor at the Glasgow Hilton.
“You are a dickhead. You can’t film me without asking first,” Lippi swore at the cameraman, from RAI.
“If you like, we can go into the press room and you can film all you want, but you can’t hide away like that.”
Lippi later apologised, but his outburst confirmed that the pressure of leading his country is beginning to have an impact on the man charged with improving Italy’s wretched record in recent major competitions.
Italy lead Group Five with 14 points from seven matches, two ahead of second-placed Norway, but the draw with Scotland undermined confidence in their ability to mount a sustained challenge at next year’s finals.
“I will be worried the day you (journalists) and I think in the same way,” he said immediately after the game.
“We allowed ourselves to be caught out by the early goal and then turned in on ourselves, but I thought we played a great second half.”
