How ex-West Ham star Di Canio discovered no one can mess with fiery Fabio

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"Why can't you just let me play the whole game", I said to Capello. "Because, Paolo, you've got to understand that we have to maintain a tactical equilibrium," he said.

China crisis: furious Di Canio had a bust-up with Capello over tactics in Beijing

"What equilibrium," I told him. "Against a bunch of Chinese who can't even play proper football? We're here to entertain!"

Capello just gave me a dirty look. He probably genuinely thought that 60,000 Chinese who had paid to see us had forked out their cash to see his 4-3-2-1 system in action, not to watch the likes of Baggio and Paolo Di Canio.

The next night we played in Beijing. Baggio, Lentini and I were up front. We took a 1-0 lead.

Naturally, Capello decided to take off a forward and send on a defender to protect the lead even though it was an irrelevant exhibition and he was leaving in two weeks anyway.

And naturally, I was the one he picked on. I got angry. Once again, I felt I had been singled out for speaking my mind.

"What the f*** are you doing," I asked him at half-time when he announced that I would be coming off.

"F*** off," he replied. Capello wasn't the kind of man who minced words. "You're coming off because you're not trying."

"You're crazy, you're sick in the head," I shouted back. "You go f*** off!"

Capello lunged at me; he always had a quick temper. I shoved him, we took a few swings at each other. I was furious. Capello is a big, strong man but I was not afraid of him. Milan's coaching staff steamed in and tore us apart. I was still livid.

"You can't treat me like this!" I yelled. "You already signed for Madrid, you are a nobody here! I still have my contract, you'd better learn to respect me!"

Capello must have had four people holding him back.

"Get the f*** out of my sight," he bellowed. "Go back to the f****** hotel!"

I looked him straight in the eye and replied: "You're not going to tell me what to do. Whether I go back to the hotel or not, it's up to me, it's my decision. You're going to stop deciding things for me!

"One thing is for sure, I'm not going to hang around here and look at your penis face any longer!"

He got his wish. I walked straight out of the stadium, grabbed a cab and returned to our hotel.

From Paolo Di Canio — The Autobiography.