It no longer mattered, but Milan chooses the worst way to say goodbye to this edition of the Euroleague, also losing the last home game against Limoges 69-77, at the end of a game that has always been chasing, which started badly and ended worse, and which has exactly reflected the bad European path disputed so far by the EA7. It's true that the games ended a week ago, but the fans were expecting a surge of pride, something that boded well for the future, instead at the end of the match they rightly booed Olimpia, "capable" to repeat the knockout of the first leg against modest Limoges, thus finishing bottom of the group (with the French fifth in head-to-head matches), with 3 wins and 7 defeats, equaling their worst ever record in the first phase of this competition. In a game with very few flashes and even fewer ideas, the best was Macvan with 15 points, followed at times by Simon, the one who takes most of the initiatives in Gentile's absence.
Since January, with the return of the captain and the addition of former Sassari player Rakim Sanders (but we are also looking for a strong point guard, the dream was Lithuanian Kalnietis, under Zalgiris and Italy's executioner at the European Championships, and perhaps a another long, although Barac has been confirmed) the level of the roster should rise significantly, but what is certain is that so far the summer market is far from being able to be defined as satisfactory. Sassari had already thought about completing the Italian defeat in the Euroleague on Thursday evening, paved on the field of Bamberg 86-54, thus collecting the tenth defeat out of ten matches (the last 4 after the "very useful" change of coach), what ever happened to no team in the various editions of the top European competition (and also counting last season, Dinamo has only achieved one success against 19 knockouts). Arrived in Germany with many important absences, the Sardinian team was asked to try to save face and the honor of those who play with the Scudetto sewn on their chest, instead it went badly once again, very badly, like the whole group, not certainly what is expected from the formation that should represent Italy. One cannot therefore fail to speak of a total failure of Italian basketball at these levels, while going down a bit, as demonstrated by our formations involved in the Eurocup, the situation is not so tragic.
But it is when you are confronted with the most famous teams on the continent that all the difference in economic power, but also in movement, that exists today between certain European championships and ours emerges. Because it is true that if Sassari cannot compete economically with most of the squadrons it encounters, Milan is much better equipped in this respect (in Italy it has no rivals from a financial point of view), but also its budget, compared to CSKA Moscow or Real Madrid of the situation, it becomes tremendously minor. Having said that, Olimpia in recent years has given the feeling, and the results are there to prove it, that they have in any case invested their budget badly, that they have often chosen the wrong players or at least not the best players around (we are talking about not the tops), which in the end led her, as in this case, to keep up not only with the big names but also with more affordable formations. Milan which is in any case only the tip of the iceberg of a movement that is terribly struggling to move, between scarce financial resources (EA7 is the only exception), obsolete buildings and a thousand other problems, a situation at the moment too far from the Spanish one, for example , which boasts 4 teams in the Top 16 and another 4 in the Last 32 of the Eurocup, most of these favorites for their respective final victories (and with many quality Spanish players on the floor).
