Baggio gets Lippi in print

"During one of the first training games that summer, I hit a 40-yard through-ball to Vieri. He got on the end of it and scored. Then he turned around and applauded me from the penalty area. Panucci also complimented me - a normal enough thing between team-mates.

"The trouble is you've no idea how Lippi reacted. He went beserk: 'Vieri, Panucci, what the f***k do you think you're doing,' he shouted. 'We're not here to congratulate one another, we're here to work. Nobody applauds anyone here and that also applies to Mr Baggio.'

"He said it with unbelievable venom, too. He was completely over the top."

The above is an extract from Roberto Baggio's forthcoming autobiography, Una Porta In Cielo (literally, "A Goal in Heaven"), due in Italian shops this week. The extract in question refers to Inter Milan's pre-season training camp in the summer of 1999, while those named are players, Christian Vieri and Christian Panucci, and then Inter coach Marcello Lippi.

While Baggio's literary offering, co-written with Enrico Mattesini, deals with Baggio's childhood, with his relationship with his father and with Buddhism, it is his observations about football that inevitably whet the appetite.

"My situation at Inter was simple. I was reserve to everybody including (newly-arrived Romanian) Mutu and (Nello) Russo, a player who with all due respect these days struggles in Division Three. In practice, I could only get a game if an epidemic hit the team," writes Baggio.

Lippi was the problem, claims Baggio. He alleges that when Lippi first arrived at Inter, after a tumultuous season of reported dressing-room mutiny at the club, the newly-arrived coach asked him for the names of the troublemakers. Baggio refused.

Lippi allegedly responded by declaring "war" on the Little Prince of Italian soccer, now 34 and currently leading the Serie A goalscorers' chart with eight goals for Brescia. At one point, annoyed by Baggio's complaints to the media about not getting a game, Lippi gathered all the squad at a training session and criticised Baggio, suggesting that the player was no longer good enough.

It may well have been that Lippi simply did not and does not "rate" Baggio. After all, when the two were together at Juventus (1994-95 season), Lippi encouraged the club to sell Baggio to AC Milan, secure in the knowledge he had a ready-made in-house replacement in Alessandro Del Piero.

Ironically, however, the Lippi-Baggio working relationship ended on a winning note in May 2000 during an Inter v Parma play-off for a place in the Champions League. An epidemic did strike the Inter camp. Baggio played and scored two sublime goals in a 3-1 win.

As Baggio came off to a standing ovation, Lippi could not but congratulate his player. The cursory nature of the handshake, the lack of eye-contact and the two unsmiling faces told it all. These two did not get on.

Needless to say, the advance publication of extracts of the Baggio book has not gone unnoticed in the Lippi household. Last Friday, the (now) Juventus coach offered his side of the story, denying he had ever asked any player to "spy" for him.

"During my career, I've worked with many great players. I've asked them for help in handling the team because they were authentic leaders, players of great charisma, people like Gianluca Vialli, Angelo Peruzzi, Ciro Ferrara, Didier Deschamps, Laurent Blanc, Christian Vieri etc.

"I never looked to Baggio for that sort of help because I didn't and don't hold him in the same esteem as the players I've just named."

This one could run and run.