Professional athletes can sometimes come up with the most bizarre reasons for not fulfilling their duty to compete. Soccer star Denis Bergkamp's fear of flying, for instance, has cost Arsenal his services in Europe on several occasions. Few though will be able to compete with Italian full back Andrea Scanavacca when it comes to being excused from international duty.
Italy's New Zealand-born coach Brad Johnstone revealed recently that he had left Scanavacca out of the national team for six months because he had a cockroach phobia. Scanavacca returned to national service a fortnight ago against England at Twickenham. He was one of the few positives for Italy in the hefty 80-23 Six Nations defeat and afterwards Johnstone revealed he found out about Scanavacca's phobia on the summer tour of Tonga, Fiji and Samoa.
"When we were in the south Pacific last summer Scanavacca did not sleep a single night because he had this fear that there was a cockroach in his bedroom," explained the coach. "I understood that he was lacking in the required character and kept him on the bench until the game with England. But here he was great and was even a match for (England outhalf Jonny) Wilkinson."
Scanavacca proved that Italy need not rely on stand-off Diego Dominguez - who was yet to play at that juncture in this season's tournament because of injury - for goalkicking. However Scanavacca's return to the international limelight was a short-lived affair despite the praise lavished upon him by the volatile Johnstone.
The player lost out to the aforementioned Dominguez, happily restored to full health after a leg injury, for last Saturday's Six Nations clash with France in Rome. Getting over his fear of cockroaches could prove to be the easier task as far as Scanavacca's international career is concerned.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)