Blue basketball is back on stage tonight. At 21 pm, Pianigiani's Italy will face the hosts of these European Championships in Ljubljana, pushed by an entire country and led on the pitch by Goran Dragic, the Phoenix Suns point guard.
A possible success against Slovenia would incredibly lead us to already think about the quarter-finals, otherwise the mathematical access to the last knockout phase will be sought against Croatia (with a super Bojan Bogdanovic) or subsequently against the reigning champions from Spain.
The amazing results obtained in the first round could even allow Italy to lose all three of their next matches, but in that case obviously the opponents' matches would have to go in the right direction.
As for yesterday's results, Latvia crushed Ukraine and now unexpectedly find themselves with one foot in the quarter-finals, as do Serbia, who after overcoming Belgium are virtually certain to be in the top eight. False step instead for France with Lithuania, which however shouldn't compromise its path, but above all confirmation of the strength of the Baltic team, one of the candidates for a place at the World Cup.
The first six classified teams will take part in the planetary competition (not considering Spain, the venue for next summer's event). A pass that on the eve seemed difficult to obtain for Italy, but which now seems within our reach and which would redeem the lack of participation in 2010 in Turkey.
An Italy that so far has shown that it can only win, beyond all predictions and despite having come across an iron initial group, a team that is the protagonist of a start to the tournament as amazing as it is unexpected, but which now wants to continue to amaze, even if consequently it will be looked at with a different eye by the next opponents, who now fear us and will not want to be surprised. A group, led by Simone Pianigiani, who led all the matches played with unexpected authority, practically always staying in front. A formation driven by a great Belinelli, true leader of the team, assisted by Datome, but who can also count on people like Aradori, surgical in the decisive moments, Gentile, who in some situations exalts himself and takes all his teammates with him, but also on an unsuspected like Cusin, the center of Cantù who is making himself respected against the strongest giants of the continent, a humble boy but with an enormous desire like all of this Italy. Without forgetting that the Azzurri have so far not been able to fully rely on Travis Diener, the point guard from Sassari who officially became Italian last May, conditioned by an ankle problem, but who if he were 100% recovered could give a big hand to this collective .
Beautiful, but useless, to think of what we would have been with the flashes, penetrations and bravado of Hackett, added to the physicality and infinite class of Gallinari and Bargnani (with the experience of the last few NBA years, even if the European game is completely different), leaving out other important men such as Mancinelli and Gigli. Certainly, even if one never knows, at this point we would have been a squadron seriously pretending to the title of European Champion, but even so the final on 22 September is not a utopia.
