Italy coach Luciano Spalletti reacted angrily to questions after the 1-1 draw with Croatia, but felt bad about it and called the journalist to apologise at 2am.
It was a dramatic finale in Leipzig last night when Mattia Zaccagni snatched an equaliser at the 98th minute to send the Azzurri through in second place of their EURO 2024 group.
The tension got to Spalletti, who responded shouting with irritation to questions from first Sky Sport Italia, then snapped at the first question he received during the press conference.
Once he had calmed down, the coach felt badly and phoned up the journalist who had been targeted.
It was Dario Ricci of Radio 24, who later told listeners about what happened afterwards.
“At 2am I received a phone call from a number I did not recognise, I thought it might be spam, but I heard someone say: ‘Hello Dario, this is Luciano.’
“I don’t know anyone called Luciano who has my number, so it took me a while to realise it was Luciano Spalletti and the Federation press office had given him my number.
“He apologised several times for the tone used, we also cleared the air. It was a strange night, as I was sitting in the front row and the FIGC President Gabriele Gravina was sat next to me, so while Spalletti gave that very long reply, I was trying to assure Gravina that it was not meant to be insulting.”
Fortunately, as the game had ended so late and there is a certain amount of travel involved too, the journalist was not asleep at 2am but rather finishing off his articles from the match.
Italy will play Switzerland in the Round of 16 on Saturday June 29.