Rome  - A bad-tempered Jose Mourinho found himself with few supporters Friday in a diatribe against Marcello Lippi that heated up the week preceding the start of the Italian Serie A.

The coach of reigning champions Inter Milan reacted bitterly to Lippi's forecast that Juventus, the team he successfully coached before steering Italy to their fourth World Cup in 2006, were the favourites to clinch the title.

"I didn't hear it," Mourinho said, "but if what I read is true, it's the first time that I see a (national team coach), a person with great institutional responsibility, predict the success of a team.

"If it's true, it makes me think a lot. If true, it's a lack of respect," Mourinho told Inter channel, adding that he expected "a reaction from (Italian) football" to Lippi's words.

In his first year at Inter's helm, Mourinho earned a reputation for being a "great communicator" - a title that commentators often use for AC Milan owner and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

His waspish remark, however, found virtually no backing - save possibly among Inter fans.

As a surprised Lippi said he was "sorry that Mourinho gave such an interpretation," no reaction came from Italian football, while, oddly enough, no one bothered to ask Mourinho what exactly was he thinking.

"In its simplicity," Lippi said, "mine was just a forecast, one of the thousand that people do before the league starts. I do billions of interviews. In the past three years I have said that Inter are the strongest team.

"(This time) I was asked 'who wins the scudetto?' and I said what I had in mind. Mourinho seemed to be an intelligent person to me. I'm sorry that he understood other things. But there's no problem. You can't even say half a word. .."

More than half a word came from Roma coach Luciano Spalletti, who recalled how Lippi a year ago forecast Inter as the winners.

"From a personal point of view, I don't see (such predictions) as lack of respect," Spalletti said as his captain Francesco Totti also found nothing offensive in Lippi's words.

Giancarlo Abete, president of the Italian football federation (FIGC) diplomatally talked of "an exchange between two characters with high media impact who have different opinions. As FIGC president I gave no importance at all to this matter, which is a sample of spoken football due to lack of played football."

As Mourinho Thursday kept saying that Lippi was not entitled to make forecasts, the Italian selector closed the argument saying he "would not utter a single word about it."

Mourinho must have been pleased to have the last, quite bitter, word as he said that "in my opinion, a national team selector cannot predict, in such a direct manner, who will win the title.

"Will (selector) Fabio Capello, in England, give the name of a team at the same question? And Vicente Del Bosque in Spain? I don't think so. They are too intelligent to do it."

Such are the things you can say when you are a great communicator. (dpa)