MICAH RICHARDS admitted a former manager he called an “idiot” on his first day at the club “just wasn’t for me”.
The 35-year-old former Manchester City and England right-back spoke about his former manager live on the BBC on Tuesday.
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It happened during a pre-match discussion about the Euro 2024 clash between Turkey and Georgia.
Describing him, Richards said: “He’s a really tactical coach.
“He likes to play up front, he likes to press high. He wants his full-backs or full-backs to perform at every opportunity.
“He was a striker, wasn’t he, so his mentality was ‘take the ball forward and score goals’. But he was a brilliant coach, he was.”
When pressed on how he treated defenders, Richards added: “We had some issues, Mark [Chapman]. Do you want to delve deeper into this?”
When presenter Chapman tried to move on, the former defender said: “He was great, but not for me.”
The coach in question is Italian Vincenzo Montella, who coached Richards during his season-long loan spell at Fiorentina.
Richards was talking about his old boss, as Montella is now the coach of Turkey – who Georgia played in the Euros on Tuesday night.
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And there’s a hilarious story Richards has told in the past about meeting his Italian boss for the first time.
Former Man City teammate Mario Balotelli told Richards to say a certain phrase to Montella in Italian – a language the English defender did not speak.
Little did he know that this translated to “f***ing d***head”.
Talking about Podcast The rest is football Last year, Richards explained: “I went to Fiorentina on the last day of the transfer window and obviously I don’t speak Italian – I have ‘Si’ – yeah, basically.
“Like the absolute idiot that I am, I spoke to Balotelli to say ‘What should I say when I’m greeting someone?’ Because he’s usually good.
“I went to the manager and called him an idiot.
“You know what, why didn’t I check? You can just Google it. For some reason, I just believed Balotelli. He set me up and gave me kippers.
“And to be fair to Montella, he started laughing.”
Richards played just 19 times for Fiorentina before returning to parent club Man City and being sold to Aston Villa.
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BBC and ITV’s Euro 2024 line up in full
Here’s how each channel will be aligned:
BBC presenters:
Gary Lineker, Alex Scott, Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman
ITV presenters:
Mark Pougatch and Laura Woods
BBC experts:
Alan Shearer, Micah Richards, Rio Ferdinand, Ellen White, Frank Lampard, Ashley Williams, Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart, Cesc Fabregas, Thomas Frank, David Moyes, Rachel Corsie and James McFadden
ITV experts:
Ian Wright, Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Karen Carney, Graeme Souness, Eni Aluko, Ange Postecoglou, Danny Rohl and Christina Unkel
BBC commentators:
Guy Mowbray, Robyn Cowen, Vicki Sparks, Steve Wilson, Steve Bower and Jonathan Pearce
ITV commentators:
Sam Matterface, Clive Tyldesley, Seb Hutchinson, Pien Meulensteen and Joe Speight
BBC co-commentators:
Danny Murphy, Martin Keown, Jermaine Jenas and James McFadden
ITV co-commentators:
Lee Dixon, Ally McCoist and Andros Townsend
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
