Totti’s wife calls coach ‘small man’

Francesco Totti's wife Ilary Blasi has slammed Roma manager Luciano Spalletti for his treatment of her legendary husband, calling the coach ‘a small man’. Totti, who turned 40 on Tuesday, scored his 250th Serie A goal for Roma in Sunday’s 3-1 loss to Torino but his future looked in doubt at the start of 2016, after he was dropped by Spalletti in February after giving an interview in which he asked for more respect and playing time. Spalletti insisted that Totti was dropped for the game against Palermo in February to ‘maintain order’ in his squad, but Blasi, a television presenter, was not impressed and has insisted her husband’s boss did not ‘behave on a human level’ while dealing with the incident.

“I do not know anything about football, but the whole situation was surreal. It was like science fiction, I could not believe it. He was kicked out of his own house. You do not do something like this. But the fans did not abandon him,” Totti’s wife told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“Footballing decisions are always debatable, but I will not talk about that. I do have something to say on a human level, though, about the person. I am not criticising sporting decisions, I am criticising human behaviour. Spalletti acted like a small man. That’s the truth. Period.

“Francesco only asked for respect in the interview that caused all this and he was right. He was not being respected at the time. Francesco is not a controversial person.”