Coach Fioretti: "Winning a game like this means we've put something special on the field."
A Coppa Italia final as a rookie head coach. It's another medal Mario Fioretti can pin on his chest after Bertram Derthona Tortona's 84-78 victory, pulling off the most sensational victory of the 2026 Frecciarossa Final Eight, defeating Virtus Olidata Bologna, the reigning Italian champion and current league leader, in the semifinals and eliminating them from the competition.
"We played a very solid game on offense, missing a lot of easy shots close to the basket but finding some more difficult ones from deep," coach Mario Fioretti said in his postgame press conference. "We had incredible energy on the rebounds; that's what kept us alive. Defensively, some slumps against such a strong team are inevitable, but in the fourth quarter, we played one of the best quarters of our entire season, with truly exceptional aggression."
Not even going eight points down with just a minute left in the third quarter dampened Bertram's desire to reach the final: "To finish behind like that in the second half against such a caliber opponent and then come back is incredibly satisfying, especially because as soon as we got back in the game, we immediately broke away, putting together a great run in six or seven minutes. To do that, you really have to put in something special, and we did."
Derthona-Milan has already been in the Coppa Italia final in 2022, and the Tortona-born coach was then on the Milan bench: "These are the cases in sport. I'm not saying that Milan reaching the final is the norm, but one expects it more. Instead of us getting there by beating Venezia and Virtus Bologna, I ask you: would you have made such a prediction or not? Now let's think about this final. Every time I see the people of Milan, you can imagine the whirlwind of emotions I feel, but now I'm on the opposing bench and we're going to challenge them."
