Pep Clotet. One-time Leeds assistant under Garry Monk and Birmingham City manager, and now case study in unprofessional behaviour in the workplace. When a colleague, say one of your strikers, does something wrong, like punch an opposing defender, how do you respond? Is it: A) bring it up in a private meeting; B) call them an idiot in front of a few thousand people; or C) grab them by the scruff of the neck and throttle them?

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When confronted with such an issue on Friday night, Clotet’s answer was the latter. Triestina forward Raimonds Krollis was infuriated by Giana Erminio defender Luca Ferri attempting to mark him in the same way Steve Irwin used to wrestle crocodiles. Just as Krollis shook himself free, Ferri gave him a slap to which he replied with what appeared to be a dig to the back of the skull, just as the referee and linesman spotted the ongoing scuffle. Rookie move.

Krollis trudged off the pitch having accepted his fate and made it to the edge of the tunnel before something out of frame caught his attention. It was Clotet, thundering towards him with his evident rage suppressed under his overcoat and peak cap. I assume he brought that look with him from Brum. He met Krollis with the rage of a man whose fourth game in charge of the team bottom of Serie C Group A had just gone up in smoke. And it had.

The game was level when Krollis struck Ferri and, despite a decent effort from Clotet to reorganise and play for the draw, Giana scored late on to win 1-0 and leave Triestina bottom and eight points off safety, with one win from their opening fourteen games.

Two points from four games isn’t an ideal start for Clotet, certainly not when managing a side that finished 4th last season and was considered among the favourites for promotion this year. Most managers would keep their head down, placate the media with platitudes about turning things around and how it’s always darkest before the dawn.

At least once a season, someone on here would tweet ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’ in relation to Leeds United. That went on for about 15 years https://t.co/yl0OcuJYUk

— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) November 7, 2024

But not Pep, and it meant that reporters in Trieste were predicting he’d be out of a job on Saturday morning. So when Clotet sat down after the match to speak to the media, you might have expected it was time for damage control. Perhaps some contrition?

“Krollis is done with Triestina as long as I am the coach,” he said. “My gesture was right for what happened. What Krollis did is unacceptable, it damages Triestina, the club he represents and football in general.”

Wasn’t expecting that, but fair enough. He’s nothing if not principled.

After all, this is a guy who has worked under Massimo Cellino at Brescia. Three times. He first took over in February 2021 as Massimo’s fifth coach of the season. His team averaged two points per game and rose from 14th to 7th, reaching the Serie B play-offs where, like a true Leeds man, they lost.

He left for SPAL that summer, staying in Serie B but at a club that he seemed to believe more suited to his ambitions. He was sacked after half a season. Brescia came calling again in summer 2022 and he went back for more Cellino, which was probably an early sign that he might be a bit mad. Unsurprisingly, he was sacked after eighteen games with Brescia 10th in Serie B but was rehired three weeks later as Cellino kept him on the payroll rather than fork out for a large compensation package. That might seem very Cellino, but it’s common practice in Italian football. What is less common is reappointing the manager so quickly after sacking him — and then sacking him again three games later.

Poor lad, Pep. He’d been through the ringer, sacked twice by the same guy in the space of six weeks and then went on to have a bizarre spell at Torpedo Moscow, which also didn’t work out. He arrived at Triestina last month with this baggage and the pressure of needing to make an instant impact on a team that is massively underachieving.

Reports from Trieste on Monday evening seemed to confirm that Clotet wouldn’t be sacked for what happened on Friday and that he had taken training that day. Krollis is off on international duty with Latvia, so there was no awkward encounter in a corridor to worry about. It remains to be seen what will happen with him, but you’d imagine he’ll head back to his parent club Spezia in January.

Clotet might have received the backing of Triestina’s new American owners, some of whom were involved in taking Venezia from Italian football’s doldrums to Serie A a few years ago, but he’s under a lot of pressure and the Krollis incident is surely going to be a stick with which to beat him if he doesn’t turn things around. If all else fails, it seems that Cellino is on the verge of sacking Brescia’s manager, maybe he could go back there? As assistant to Gaetano Berardi, of course. ⬢