Interregional Serie B, Gulliver Derthona's debut on Friday at PalaCamagna: coach Luca Ansaloni's expectations
The wait is over. From that sweet June 8th that marked promotion to the Interregional Serie B to September 29th, the debut in the new, fourth-ranked national championship. Derthona Basket 's youth teams officially begin their season with the U19 Excellence group, which this year also competes in the senior championship, in addition to its own youth championship. So, the desire to attend Gulliver Supermercati Derthona's debut at 20:45 PM on Friday at the PalaCamagna in Tortona against Campus Varese in the first matchday of Group A , the Lombardy-Piedmontese division, can now be satisfied.
As the division rises, the level of our opponents obviously rises, and this is where head coach and youth team technical director Luca Ansaloni's pre-season analysis begins : " The higher division we've reached means we'll have to make an even greater effort in terms of quality to be able to compete, so it will essentially be an even more stimulating experience. The primary goal of playing in a senior championship is to give the players a different kind of experience than they would have at the youth level, exclusively with their peers. In this sense, results are secondary to the improvement we could see over the course of the season, as happened last year. It could happen, although I hope not, that we lose a series of games in a row at the start like last year, but that's not an aspect I wouldn't dwell on too much; what matters to me is the continued growth of our players ."
Among them are some summer signings, Stefano Conte, Andrija Josovic, and Tommaso Diodati: " They can give a lot because they are all players we can rely on strongly. We've seen qualities in them, and we hope to develop their strengths and improve their weaknesses. Obviously, they need to be tested, because only Conte has already played a senior championship, while the others haven't. We need to see their impact among the seniors. Furthermore, Conte is out injured, so we'll have to be patient to see him in action ." From this perspective, our thoughts can only turn to Pietro Lisini, who suffered a serious injury in the U19 Eccellenza friendly against EA7 Emporio Armani Milano last Friday at the PalaCamagna: " We are and will all be behind him to ensure he makes a full recovery after surgery. We expect him to be stronger than before; I can testify to this firsthand because I've had serious injuries in my career and I've come back stronger than ever. What I told the boys in the aftermath of what happened to him is to ensure he finds the strongest and most cohesive team possible when he returns to the group. We'll work towards that and create the best conditions for him to reintegrate ," is the caress Ansaloni reserves for the 2005-born veteran of the Lions' youth team. This year, at the U19 Excellence level , they'll be trying to secure qualification for the National Finals, which they narrowly missed out on in 2022/23: " For the National Finals, we'll try to do our part and manage to squeeze in. There are always some rather strange, complicated, and delicate factors that come into play; you only find out later how many teams can advance to the Finals, and our group is a fairly tight race, it was last year and it is again this year because the level is very high, as evidenced by the final placings in the last Finals, where the teams that exited our group finished among the top ones. Our debut, for example, is against the absolute favorite of the group, College Basketball Borgomanero, so it's a good start for them. We'll immediately gauge the level of our opponents and our own, because friendlies aren't enough to see where we really stand ."
