Bologna –<\/p>\n
Speaking to Radio Sportiva today, Virtus Segafredo Bologna CEO Luca Baraldi analyzed the momentum of the Virtus Segafredo season.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The current standings situation in the Euroleague<\/strong>. “The two consecutive defeats cause a stir, but they are a snapshot of our season in that up to now we have suffered very few defeats in previous games, and they came after several important games such as in the league with Reggio, the previous Friday in Berlin and before that against Bayern Munich. That is why the physical aspect for a team playing away is decisive, so much so that many top teams have lost many games just away from home, the home court factor in Europe has a very important value, as it is to date for us. Our European home performances can be accumulated with those of Real Madrid, with a record of 9 to 1. The court factor, our Virtus Segafredo Arena and, above all, the presence of our fans are decisive elements.”<\/p>\n <\/em>European goals<\/strong>: “Our goal is to improve on last year’s ranking which was 14th, at the moment we have equaled the same number of wins as last season, there are still 13 to go, one win we should find between now and the end. This was the goal we had also given to the technical area, then rightly the shareholder, wanting the most out of his investments, asked for entry into the playoffs, this is the goal of the season.At the moment we are in a good situation, there are so many games left and our competitors are clubs with top rosters and with investments far greater than ours. We are in our second participation in the Euroleague, after two decades of absence.If we analyze the performance of the teams at their first continental participations, they are all mid- to lower-ranked, from this point of view we are satisfied.”<\/p>\n <\/em>On the path of the two Italian teams in Europe<\/strong>: “Milan should be respected so much, they have a Final Four roster and technical structure.I think after a bit of a limp start we will see a better performing team in the remaining games, I think they can comfortably enter the playoffs and access the final win.”<\/p>\n <\/em>On the group of Italian players<\/strong>: “Our Italians are not players with trivial experience, we have Belinelli who has spent 13 years in the NBA, when the average life span of an overoean player is 4 and a half years, and so those who allowed themselves to criticize him in the past season maybe were wrong and he is proving it today.I do not want to forget Hackett, for me he is an extraordinary player like Marco, with great experience and an almost unique palmares for an Italian player in Europe and he is giving us a fundamental contribution.Pajola, one of the pillars of the national team, and Polonara.”<\/p>\n <\/em>On Achille Polonara<\/strong>: “Achille’s story, after an initial moment of discouragement, has given the concrete awareness that in life one can overcome problems much more difficult and important than a simple basketball game.This strength he is taking inside himself and inside the locker room. Also the relationship with teammates to date I consider him an added value for the whole team.”<\/p>\n <\/em>On Coach Banchi’s arrival at the beginning of the season<\/strong>: “We had no intention of making a change operation, precisely because we had one of the best coaches in the world, then as a result of the press conference and other things that happened in the last period, we realized that perhaps there was no longer a sharing of path and unity of vision of the composition and management of the team.<\/em> <\/em>On the growth of Italian basketball<\/strong>: “I am convinced that the duel with Milan is good for the whole system, and today, in addition to Venice, which has always been there, we can see new competitors such as Brescia, a team of great respect, as well as Tortona, which is making great investments and which I believe can rejoin the bigs quickly. Reggio Emilia has also invested a lot and is administered by very experienced international managers. Italian basketball can count at least 6-7 great teams, this situation was not present 4 years ago, when there was only the Virtus-Milan duopoly.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":64662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[307,268,256,248],"tags":[308,269,265],"class_list":["post-64667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-euroleague-en","category-primo-piano-en","category-a-league","category-news","tag-euroleague-en","tag-app-en","tag-evidence"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virtus.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIt was preferred to think about change. The facts proved us right, and thanks to the skill and intuition of our General Manager Paolo Ronci, we decided on Banchi.As soon as he brought me this kind of solution I immediately espoused it.I did not know him personally but I had followed him as a coach, a coach who affirmed values, not only technical, but also very interesting from the point of view of locker room management. Following his national team’s performance at the World Championship we went straight on this decision.”<\/p>\n