Happy New Year |
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The end of the year is always time for reflection and acknowledgements. With this intentions in mind, I'd like wishing serene holidays and a new year full of health and success to all of those who in the past 12 months have showed me their sympathy and affection, to those who have rejoiced with us in good times and have supported us in more turbulent moments and also to those who, politely and with arguments, have disagreed on aspects of my job, a position in which by definition it is impossible to find a general consensus, as the room for subjectivity in sport is huge. Looking back at the closing year, it is very easy to mention the great victory in the 2011 Eurobasket that made history for the Spanish national team, which I am honoured to coach, with a repeat of the European title, something that almost nobody managed to achieve before. I think also of the beginning of the new project, at club level, with Olimpia Milan, without doubt gone above expectations with the first place in the table of the Italian championship and the qualification for the Euroleague's top 16. Beyond titles and results, there are some specific technical aspects that gave me great satisfaction, for example having completed a transition within the Spanish national team, from a system used for many years and which had brought very good results (with 4 players on the perimeter and one big man), to a system with the simultaneous presence of two interior players, but also the consolidation of the roles within the team with a solid, experienced and talented starting five, and a bench full of dedicated players able to know their role but also to interpret it with ambition when it's time to do so. The feeling of being in my third season of activity with the national team has been much more evident this year: we worked more smoothly because many concepts were acquired in the two previous years, and even those new concepts have been assimilated very quickly by a group of players not only very talented, but also with a deep level of knowledge of the game, with discipline and seriousness when it's time to go on the court, combined with the traditional chemistry and love for fun (with measure ...) off the court. As for the Olimpia, it is a solid project that allowed me to join Giorgio Armani's group, one of the most serious and professional I have ever worked for, and a club which is young but well-organised, with a quality technical staff with many new elements and an absolute devotion to their daily work. We have a diverse group of players: we signed players who had a complementary role in top-level teams, with the aim of making them leaders of a team which is not yet a top-level one. We signed or recalled from loans young players with good potential, plugging in the group for a short period of time a great champion like Danilo Gallinari, in a situation not easy for him and for the rest of the team. With the normal ups and downs, typical of the first steps of a project, we continue to believe in our job of perfecting our systems, although we really still have a lot to do, and probably the first year will not get us to play with the fluidity which for example the Spanish national team shows in playing its basketball, or even in comparison with other teams of the same Italian league whose coach and several players have got used to play together for some years now. I feel happy with the club, the city and the team, while I'll put on hold for now the judgement (because it wouldn't be positive, but rather the opposite) on Italian basketball and Italian sport in general. This will probably be the subject of deeper considerations later on, on this website. The challenge of our club, which has maintained the same budget of last year but wants to improve results and then possibly continue this improvement in the coming years, is a challenge that finds myself in perfect agreement with its goals and timescale. Above all I am very happy that our team, the second youngest of the Italian league for age average after Benetton Treviso, is one of the few Italian basketball projects in which the word "project" is combined with an ability to look at the final objective without stopping in judging the players after each game, with a background like that of the Italian league where on the contrary I feel there is the need/attitude, possibly forced by the actual economy context, to think exclusively of the present and the day to day, although in some cases in a very clever and brilliant way, but anyway very differently from the approach we have at Olimpia. The other day in Belgrade there were some moments when, in a key game like that, we had at the same time on the court three players born after the year 1990: Radosevic, Melli and Gentile. There will be games in the future, some with more, others with less, tension, and we hope that our young players will mature and be able to stay on the court for an increasing number of minutes, even against top-level rivals in Europe and Italy. Meanwhile the progress at team and individual level can be seen, even if if we are all aware that there are still many obstacles to overcome, and that there will be ups and downs without any doubt. But we are also aware of the fact that after all we are going in the right direction, regardless of the first place in the table of the Italian league and the qualification for the Euroleague's Top 16, but more than anything else feeling good vibes and showing an increasing cohesion of our team on the path to our goal. I close this post by sending my best wishes for a happy new year to all of our fans, Spanish, Italian and foreign, to those that read us on this website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter, with a particular thought and thank you to all the friends, sponsors, contributors and partners of the Fundacion Cesare Scariolo, a big community of people with which we try to do our best in helping children with leukaemia and their families to win a game which is a lot harder than a basketball match. They deserve the strongest wish that 2012 will be the year of their return to full health. Happy New Year everyone! |
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