The reunion of the silver Italy in Athens 2004: "The most beautiful medal in Italian basketball"

In August there will be twenty, a round figure like that silver medal in Athens 2004, the brightest medal in the history of Italian basketball. Brighter, as Dino Meneghin also admits, “than our 1980 Moscow silver, because the Americans weren’t there then”. At the Beste in Prato, in the first reunion, twenty years later, of that team of “runaways”, as he defined it Gianmarco Pozzeccowere there, except Luca Garri and the coach Charlie Recalcati, everyone. And those names are worth remembering: Nikola Radulovic, Gianluca Basile, Giacomo Galanda, Matteo Soragna, Denis Marconato, Gianmarco Pozzecco, Alex Righetti, Rodolfo Rombaldoni, Massimo Bulleri, Michele Mian, Roberto Chiacig. All more or less in shape, Basile and Galanda above all, and as excited as the day of that fabulous semi-final win over Lithuania with Baso’s immortal ignorant shots. Anything seemed possible that evening. Then came Argentina and the golden dream became a silver wonder.

“An expedition of losers who arrived very far away”

But what if there had been an extra day between the semi-final and the final, rather than less than twenty-four hours? Basile: “You can’t win with ifs and buts. On the evening of Lithuania, a match that ended very late, I also had a doping problem. When we arrived at the village everyone was celebrating. Very strong Argentina, we had even beaten them in the group. But that’s okay.” He stole the show of course Pozzecco, who after the heartfelt tribute to the federal president Petrucci, stuck in hospital after the serious road accident last Saturday (he is better anyway, he left the intensive care unit of San Camillo), recalled that never-fading glory, that last historic medal of the national team in any tournament, Olympics, World Cup or European Championship: “I was in the room with Soragna. Once this expedition of losers started, we understood what miserable stuff we were made of, with miserable expectations, none of us even remotely dreamed of reaching the end. But little by little we reached the semi-final and there Baso began to score even from the toilet. And the rest is history.” Is already. Jack Galanda, the captain: “The Athens chat has expanded a lot. My idea, but Petrucci wanted us to be here anyway. We were here and we did something incredible. We are perhaps an underrated movement. We must start from the base, from the kids who will make tomorrow’s basketball, but also celebrate the great things that have happened.”