Di Canio: There will always be room in my heart for TommyTo team-mates it was a trifling affair. The kind of bust-up liable to occur on any training ground on any given day. Yet so far as Paolo di Canio was concerned, a footballing slight had been delivered.
Celtic's Barrowfield training ground was the venue. And the late Tommy Burns was about to discover just how volcanic his new Italian signing could be.
Moments earlier, goalkeeper Gordon Marshall had failed to deliver the ball to a screaming di Canio.
It was one of the many flashpoints which pockmarked his early days at Celtic. One which taught both Burns and, by his own admission, di Canio a lesson in how to manage a major football club.
With a glint in his eye, the Italian reclined at Sunderland's training ground yesterday and recalled the moment he bonded with one of his greatest managerial influences.
'After a few weeks, I had a confrontation with Tommy because I was upset in a training session,' he said. 'And I was ready to leave. But he came to me and hugged me like a brother with energy that was an inspiration for me. And, to be honest, sometimes I think about that.
'He was like my older brother, he made me feel like a part of the family.'
And yet the path of true love never did run smooth. It was rutted throughout a tumultuous season by rows and discord.
After three or four months at Celtic, di Canio called an impromptu meeting in the players' lounge at Parkhead. The evening before, Celtic had been knocked out of the League Cup by Hearts at Tynecastle after extra-time.
Andreas Thom, the club's German striker, had declined the opportunity to pass to di Canio. Had he done so, the winger would have been through on goal. But Thom believed he was offside.
So it was, then, that di Canio summoned his Italian translator to the team meeting to convey his thoughts on the matter to the German with some force as bewildered team-mates looked on. Pierre van Hooijdonk - a dressing-room ally of Thom - backed up his friend.
Jorge Cadete, meanwhile, believed di Canio had a fair point. The era of the Three Amigos was in full swing and, for Burns, a young manager under pressure to halt Rangers' march to 9-in-a-row, managing the madness within the genius was a constant, unenviable balancing act.
'I never forget when I moved up there with my wife and daughter and nearly every day Tommy would come to my house at four or five o'clock,' di Canio recalls. 'Even though he lived far from my house, he would knock on my door and speak to my wife and me.
'We didn't really speak a word of English, but we communicated without any problem and he said if you need any help or need to go anywhere, my wife can help you.
'For me, it was something new because it never happened in Italy.'
After signing for ÂŁ650,000 from AC Milan - he had insulted Fabio Capello in savage terms during an end-of-season tour weeks earlier - Burns showed di Canio around Celtic Park.
The new Bhoy required an atlas to discover where Glasgow actually was and, at the start, the two men had substantial communication problems. 'Whenever there was a breakdown in communication, Tommy would start pounding his chest and saying "heart, heart",' said di Canio's biographer Gabriele Marcotti. 'That really resonated with Paolo and his way of thinking.'
It still does. Di Canio has been back at Parkhead just once since his departure for Sheffield Wednesday in 1997, citing a 'leetle problem'.
It was for the memorial game for Burns, a man he still regards as a major influence on his managerial style despite his death in 2008 through an aggressive form of melanoma.
'Of course, in some ways I am similar in the way I approach my players because he was always smiling and kind - but a determined guy and a good man who had time for his players,' the Sunderland boss said yesterday. 'I don't imitate Tommy - but we are very similar.
'I like to bring his mentality with the work ethic we have got. We work so hard and everybody knows they have to work hard, but they know I am there for them.'
Burns was there for di Canio during a series of battles with Fergus McCann. He was there for him the day the Italian dissolved in fits of hysteria and threatened to withdraw his services after failing to receive enough tickets for his family for an Old Firm game. He was even there for him when di Canio became the only Celtic player to request tickets for Scottish Opera's production of La Boheme at the Theatre Royal.
Player of the year during his one campaign at Celtic, di Canio's brilliance was widely recognised. Accommodating the maestro within the prima donna was key to the way Burns wished to play the game.
'There was a moment at Swindon when I received a text message from my player at four in the morning,' said. di Canio. 'He said: "Tomorrow I don't come in the training session".
'I am there for my players 24 hours - but I was half-asleep and didn't quite understand so I rang him and asked what was going on? He said: "Oh, I don't come to training".
'"OK, I come to you", I said - and I got in the car for an hour because we didn't live in Swindon and, at five in the morning, knocked on his door.
'This is how I think and that is what I remember of Tommy.
'Obviously I don't want my players to call me every single night, but it is my mission and Tommy and his family will always be in my heart, for sure.'
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