Fired Fiorentina coach Delio Rossi was wrong to punch winger Adam Ljajic, but the Serbia international was behaving unacceptably, Zenit St. Petersburg coach Luciano Spalletti said Friday.
Rossi was dismissed for punching the winger in the dugout after he sarcastically applauded Rossi when he was substituted just after half-time in a Serie A game with Novara on Wednesday.
“I think it was a bad reaction but I remain on the side of the coach,” Spalletti said on the club's website.
“I am absolutely sure that a 20-year-old player does not have the right to behave like that. A player who’s spent half an hour on the pitch without touching the ball, or played badly in the presence of 40,000 spectators should not joke like that.”
The reason for Rossi’s violent reaction could lie in the pressure on Serie A coaches, Spalletti suggested.
“A coach in Italy works under terrible pressure, they are prepared to lose their job at any moment. The coach’s position in Italy is the weakest in the structure of football as a whole.”
Spalletti, a former AS Roma and Udinese coach, grew up near Florence and has expressed a desire to eventually coach Fiorentina, where he played for the youth teams.
In the shorter term, however, he has said he would be “very pleased” to see his name on the shortlist for the soon-to-be-vacant Russia coaching job.
