The 2000s
Luigino likes to amaze and it all starts from an evening at Checco's for dinner with Nico Messina and Dino Meneghin. We talk about the old days, about Simmenthal, and remember Giulio Jellini: never give Luigino an idea. A few weeks later, the playmaker of the championships and Champions Cups is the new coach of a Derthona Basket who with the balance before their eyes is looking for salvation in C1 and new talents from the youth sector. Bellani and Fradagrada are the additions, Andrea Ablatico the President but these are the years of the Four Hail Marys: Tava-De Ros-Barabino-Moncalvi, in strict numerical order, on the 4th, 10th, 13th and 14th they collect feats one after another, carrying the weight of eight, endless years of consecutive C1 on their shoulders.
At the Palazzetto the light is what it is, the bottom is not exactly like Madison Square Garden and over time battleships such as Caneva's Alessandria fall in an annals derby, Barantani's Castelletto, Leva's Saronno and Ferrario: the script is always the same, staying in the game and hitting at the end when all the rebounds, all the dirty balls end up in the right hands.
You often win, even at women's level and there promotion to Serie B it is the flagship of a group that Stefano Orsi has strengthened with Mantovan, Codevilla and Chiara Dallera, also from Tortona by adoption: it is the pink contribution to a movement that reaps successes at the end of the 90s when basketball continues to evolve, becoming more and more a game for modern athletes, for two-metre gentlemen who dribble, run and shoot in the same way. No longer 30, but 24 seconds to shoot, no longer two periods but four periods, only 8 seconds to pass the midfield: this is what the X generation needs, the new legends Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett and the new talents of our house. The 1983-84-85 group is talked about, Barco-Beraghi-Campeggi and Palenzona are Italian category champions in the 3-on-3 and in turn they taste the first pieces of the first team, of a team that will be theirs in the perfect style of generational change.
The new millennium opens with the salvation in Bra, with the oxymoron of a sad joy, in the changing rooms of a building that has seen us as guests many times and which, coincidentally, from that day onwards we will no longer see. It's as if someone knew that we don't want to go back to Bra, we don't want to go back to where Mario Armana told us that he would never coach again, knowing that another challenge awaited him without baskets, without blackboards and without defenses to prepare. On January 15, 2001, the "Prof" leaves us orphans of his wisdom, his style, his humor, his class as a sporting gentleman and that cold day, in the Cathedral, there are all those who learned from him to live before making an arrest and shooting.
With his memory in my heart, and his son Marco playing the first minutes of his career, Derthona passes into the hands of Angelo Franzosi, President for three years, and the purchases of Meneghin and Rotasperti are added to the list of great foreigners who have passed through here . De Ros and Barabino have said enough, while Tava is captain and custodian of the Tortonesità with Picchi and Moncalvi: there is also the satisfaction of playing the playoffs in C1 but it is the last round of the merry-go-round of a historic generation because Massimo's return is not enough Codevilla saved us in 2004. We return to C2, we start again from scratch, with the future in the hands of today's kids.
In Athens we take theOlympic silver when Basile and Galanda destroy the Lithuanian battleship under a hail of triples, while in Italy it is the era of Benetton-branded Treviso and total opening to foreigners, the effect of the infamous Bosman law which comes all the way to us.
Returning to C2 after 8 years it is the opportunity to start again doing things at home: between Tava, Moncalvi, and Lonardo on one side and Campeggi, Barco and Beraghi on the other, a strange but winning mix arises with Marco Picchi acting as a bridge between two generations of basketball players who right at the Palazzetto they learned to dribble. It's been years since they started quietly but became beautiful along the way when Armana and Martinelli also returned to the base, always taking us to the end, to two finals in four years, even after the farewells of Moncalvi and Roberto Tava which becomes difficult, after 22 seasons, do not consider the greatest ever.
We too arrive on the parquet, in a gym that bears the right name and foreigners play there, this time in name and in fact: Liba Meatchi comes from Togo, Gaston Campana is a caliph from the Argentine pampas, Ronnie Gordon comes from Scotland but does not rugby player, Carlos Vasquez loves the sun of Santo Domingo.
The rest is today's history.
Of a stadium once again as sold out as it used to be, of another Tava president, of Luigino always charged like a spring, of Gabatelli who we have missed in recent years, of yesterday's players, today's managers, of yesterday's managers who have always been fans, by Marco Ghisolfi who would like to take us high once again, as he did that evening with Carpi.
He trains Edo Gatti who is one of us, and on the pitch there is a legend who goes by Naumoski Petar. His points, his assists, his shots have already begun to delight us in the belief that he will be able to show us the path to victory: but perhaps the greatest hope is that even a champion like him leaves feeling part of our great team. family.
Texts taken from the book “HEART OF A LION: fifty years of basketball in Tortona” by Roberto Gabatelli – 2008
