Roberto Gotta in Italy

In spite of what may have transpired over the past century or so, Italians do not love authority figures. We pay them some sort of superficial respect, especially if they pretend to have all the solutions, but we then turn around and think up every possible way of circumventing the rules they set and mock the very authority we fake our loyalty to.

From chasing after the traffic warden begging him to cancel our parking ticket because what we did was not THAT bad to crowding around the referee trying to bully him into awarding - or not awarding - a yellow card, you can spot a common trait.

But refs and traffic wardens and ticket collectors do not have it as bad as football managers - the allenatori, as we say - do.