Bologna –
Fifth Virtus Bologna semifinal in the last 5 seasons, at first glance it would seem a natural habitat for Virtus but it was not always so.
This year’s is the 27th playoff semifinal since the playoffs were introduced in the 1976-77 season, with the first 2 editions preceded by a poule scudetto that Virtus overcame then yielding only in the final.
Excluding the current one, we have been talking about the playoffs for 48 championships, 47 of which have been completed with a sovereignty never taken for granted and concluded only at historic gusts, such as precisely that of the last five years.
For a long time in fact, reaching the semifinals has been something of a taboo for the V Nere, considering that in the new millennium for 13 long years it has never been reached, although the 19/20 season was interrupted by Covid with Segafredo first in the regular season. To see it again today on time can only bring pleasure, yet without forgetting the difficulty with which this road of redemption and resurrection was beaten.
Of the 26 played on 14 occasions Virtus faced the semifinals with the court factor in its favor, not always, however, attributable to the passage of the round. A situation that to bring Segafredo back to the doorstep of the finals will cost hard work, sprinkled with physical and mental pitfalls, in a confrontation that will not be decided only by the catalog of feats.
