An important Monday evening for Italian basketball, in fact at 20,30 at the PalaEstra in Siena the first meeting of the season between the two great rivals, this year as never before, Montepaschi and EA7 Milano will take place. The two teams, protagonists of three final series in the last four years (which have always seen Siena triumph), arrive at this first confrontation after a complicated start to the season for both, which saw the Milanese up until a few weeks ago with a conviction and a much better state of mind than the green-and-whites, but which now presents the hosts with a psychological condition in their favor.
In fact, after a great and promising start, especially in the Euroleague, Milan ran into some bad missteps and is now recovering from three consecutive defeats (against Caja Laboral and Zalgiris Kaunas in Europe, with the sensational internal slide against Reggiana in the middle) and a success tonight could be the real turning point of the season and give enthusiasm and energy to a somewhat depressed and fearful environment of experiencing another season only full of illusions and disappointments, despite the great initial expectations.
Coach Scariolo's boys, considered by the vast majority of insiders, after the excellent summer transfer campaign, the real favorites for the final victory, after five days of the championship they find themselves with only two points and tonight's match, as well as going up the ranking, would allow Olimpia to dispel a taboo that has lasted for almost ten years, in fact the last time it managed to breach the field of the Italian champions was on April 12, 2003. Of that team coached by Attilio Caja obviously not there was nothing left, then since then only an endless series of 21 defeats between home and away (in most cases real setbacks, with games without history, like in 2007/2008 when they finished with 36 points difference, 95 at 59) interrupted on 13 November 2011 with Milan capable of imposing itself 63-56, ten one-sided years that brought Mens Sana ahead by 49 victories to 26 in the previous 75 totals in the history of the two companies (in Tuscany the situation is 30-18). Montepaschi celebrated three of their seven championships by challenging Milan in the final, while last year the two teams faced each other 8 times (5 in the final series, 2 in the regular season and once in a straight match in the Coppa Italia) with six affirmations of Siena and two of Milan, in fact beyond the aforementioned victory of almost a year ago, there was the consolation of the success in game 4 of the finals, at the Forum, which put an end to a series of 11 knockouts in clashes in final stages.
Therefore, the time has come for Olimpia to try to reverse this trend, following its renewal, Montepaschi is no longer the battleship of recent years and Milan can finally count on a group of expert players used to playing ” of this type, but first of all he will have to avoid falling into the breaks that have characterized almost all the games of this start of the season.
However, he will be faced with a Mens Sana who, after a difficult start, with a few defeats too many to which he was no longer used to, managed to compact himself and finally found his first success in the Euroleague last Friday against the French side Chalon, after the terrible start characterized by three consecutive knockouts, while in the championship it is at an altitude of 8 points, minus 4 from the surprising leaders Varese.
Among the Sienese ranks, who had one day less rest from the European efforts (Milan played on Thursday), Bobby Brown, elected MVP of the last round of the Euroleague, is in great shape, and can finally count on the enrollment of Marcelus Kemp, while EA7 can rely on Bourousis' convincing start to the season, but must resolve Omar Cook's too many ups and downs and perfect the coexistence of its top scorers Langford and the former Hairston.
The two coaches Sergio Scariolo and Luca Banchi (in the past for many seasons first in the youth sector of Olimpia and later also in the first team) in their respective press conferences on the eve of the match reiterated how important this match is and always has a particular flavour, but that rightly we are only on November 5th, the season is very long and the matches that will really count will be those in May. But in the meantime, already tonight, it will be possible to begin to get an idea of the real growth of Siena and if the decline of Milan could become something really worrying.
