Napoli coach Luciano Spalletti tries to reassure Milan director Paolo Maldini and Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola that he has nothing but respect and admiration for them, even asking Maldini to work with him at Zenit.
The first leg of the Champions League quarter-final kicks off at San Siro on Wednesday at 20.00 UK time (19.00 GMT).
There was a clash with Milan director Maldini in the tunnel at half-time when these sides met earlier this month, the Rossoneri emerging with a 4-0 victory in Serie A, so will the coach have anything to say when they meet again tomorrow?
“I have nothing to say to Paolo because the respect and admiration goes back a long way,” said Spalletti in his press conference.
“The problem now is these cameras catch everything that happens behind the scenes, which are perfectly normal. I’ll just let you know that when I was at Zenit and was asked to choose a collaborator with an international profile who would show the strength of the club, I picked Maldini.
“He was doing something else at the time and did not accept, but this shows you how much I respect and admire the man.”
There was also a misunderstanding with Manchester City manager Guardiola, as Spalletti reacted angrily to a comment from the former Barcelona boss about Napoli’s chances of winning the Champions League.
Guardiola was about to repeat it yesterday in a press conference, only to correct himself in case Spalletti got ‘grumpy.’
“I realised from his response that what I said did not have the desired effect,” replied the Italian, who then stood up to deliver the next part of his answer.
“For a start, I will stand when talking about Guardiola, because I learned so much from him and he can be compared to the absolute greatest that we all learned from, including Jurgen Klopp and Roberto De Zerbi, some of those coaches I watch constantly.
“If it didn’t have the effect I wanted, then I apologise to Guardiola, because we love it when people talk about Napoli and praise the way we play. However, if I am told Guardiola said we can win the Champions League, then that’s different, because we are not that team who should feel performance anxiety in this competition.
“We’ve already made history, now we need to enjoy ourselves. Hopefully, I can sit down with Guardiola with a nice Turkish coffee and have a good laugh about all this.”