Giovanni Di Biasi, the coach of Azerbaijan, clashed heavily with the journalists. It all started innocently. “We lost to a better team,” he said. “But we did well in the second half.”
Then a journalist from Azerbaijan stood up and started a litany of what had gone wrong. The Biasi started to turn red and started arguing, an altercation that the interpreter could not follow. Then there was another journalist who casually asked whether De Biasi would miss the journalists if he ever left Azerbaijan. The Italian coach really exploded then. “Of course not, I have never met such stupid journalists. They know nothing about it, ask stupid questions and are just plain stupid. They forget our performance in Baku against Austria, Sweden and Belgium. They are not capable of seeing that you cannot win with a FIAT 500 against a team of Ferraris.” Italian colère at its best. He explicitly asked the interpreter to translate this so that the Belgian journalists would understand it.
De Biasi wanted to step outside, but that didn’t go the way he wanted either. First he tripped over a chair and then he tried to go out through the wrong door. A door that was closed, which caused even more anger. (lvdw)
