{"id":374775,"date":"2024-03-10T20:38:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T21:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=374775"},"modified":"2024-03-11T01:06:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T01:06:52","slug":"coachs-bizarre-defence-after-headbutting-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=374775","title":{"rendered":"Coach's bizarre defence after headbutting player"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lecce coach Roberto D\u2019Aversa appeared to headbutt Hellas Verona striker Thomas Henry following a heated match-up between the teams just above the relegation zone in Serie A<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Henry was arguing with Lecce defender Marin Pongracic after the final whistle when D\u2019Aversa went over to intervene and instead ended up knocking Henry over with an apparent headbutt directly in front of one of the match officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext Saturday we have another big match (against Salernitana) and I didn\u2019t want my players to be banned,\u201d D\u2019Aversa said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo I went out to try and separate them from the opponents and then the incident with Henry happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve already apologised to Verona\u2019s management.<\/p>\n

\"Lecce<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a coach and father of three kids, I want to apologise for what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both D'Aversa and Henry were sent off.<\/p>\n

While replays appeared to show that it was indeed a headbutt, D\u2019Aversa later said on Instagram that it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was wrong and I apologise,\u201d D\u2019Aversa said in his social media post. \u201cI got carried away and lost lucidness, but not to the point of hitting another person. \u2026 Once again I apologise to Henry, to the Lecce, Verona and Italian fans, to the referees, to the two clubs, to my management, my staff and my team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Folorunsho scored early in the first half for Verona, which won 1-0 to move up to 13th place, two points above the drop zone. Lecce dropped one point behind in 15th.<\/p>\n

With Lecce having earned just one point in five matches, the incident could also lead to D\u2019Aversa losing his job.<\/p>\n

Lecce said in a statement on its website that it \u201cfirmly disapproves\u201d of what its coach did since it \u201cgoes against the principles and values of sports".<\/p>\n

Henry, who is French, said on Instagram that receiving a red card \u201cfor reacting only verbally, to a headbutt\u201d left him \u201cembittered".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lecce coach Roberto D\u2019Aversa appeared to headbutt Hellas Verona striker Thomas Henry following a heated match-up between the teams just above the relegation zone in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374778,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374775\/revisions\/374778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/374777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}