Мессина Online

При обсуждении Евробаскета в Словении нельзя пройти мимо проблемы отсутствия множества заметных исполнителей. Слишком многие игроки отказались исполнять свой долг в национальных командах, так как, очевидно, посчитали, что после столь длительного и сложного сезона им необходим продолжительный отдых.

Starting to tackle the topic of EuroBasket in Slovenia, one can’t help mentioning the issue of numerous high-profile absentees. Too many players withdrew from their national team duties because, obviously, they felt they needed an extended rest after a long and challenging season.

We started the season with a lot of question marks, following a summer filled with changes both to the roster and to the coaching staff. Most importantly, of course, we had to replace leaders like Kirilenko, Shved, Siskauskas and important players like Lavrinovic and Gordon. Some of the decisions were up to us, others were out of our control. We lost a group of leaders and had to discover new ones for the team to be successful. Drawing a line, the only true disappointment came with falling in the Euroleague semifinals. We failed to perform to our standards in that game, failed to compete....

This journey to the Final Four wasn’t easy for anybody. We started the season with lots of question marks given the number of roster changes we had to endure. At several points of the season we struggled for different reasons. Injuries, lack of the right mentality… Fortunately, our players made great strides and really stepped up over the course of the season. We also had to overcome in-season personnel changes, parting ways with Drew Nicholas and Dionte Christmas and adding Theo Papaloukas to the mix. Theo is a player of outstanding leadership skills. He can and will share that load with...

It took us a while to prepare this blog entry but I know many of you were interested to read the details of my seminar for the football coaches. Here I would like to express appreciation to Russian Football Union for inviting me and providing me the chance to talk to the colleagues who are already successful in their sport. It was an honor and a pleasure for me. Hopefully they also found something really helpful for their future work. I would also like to thank the RFU for allowing me to publish this text in the blog. *** First of all, I’m here to tell you how I see my work in my sport. And...

I came up with the topic for this entry after I read an article by Dan Peterson, an American who’s been living in Italy for more than 30 years and a former coach of Olimpia Milano and Virtus Bologna. He wrote about Mike D’Antoni, his adventure as the head coach of the Lakers and the fact that throughout his career he’s been labeled an “offensive” coach as opposed to many others who are considered “defensive”.