Playing at home on April 2 was an opportunity to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Reggio Emilia match, with Teo Alibegovic who before the race at the Pick’n’Roll greeted the fans and signed his sticker for the “Figurine Forever” initiative and commented as the images of that day went behind him. “Figurine Forever” is a solidarity initiative, described by Emiliano Nanni.
“In Bologna our association begins to be known. We create solidarity figurines for charitable purposes, and with these we also remember the past. We had already done Schull, then we thought that a sticker could not only commemorate a champion but also celebrate an event, such as April 2, 1992. It is printed in 192 copies, not surprisingly, available on our website and at the newsstand of the Triumvirate as well as on E-Bay. If they finish, we will reprint, and the purpose is linked to a charity initiative for Bosnia, in Tuzla, in the local orphanage.”
Another organizer of the Fortitudo Museum, Filippo Venturi. “We tend to remember this episode more than a championship, because every fortitude knows where he was and how he felt that day. Not only did we save the category and the story, but it was also one of the few times that it went well for us”
“Lino Bruni asked me what I could do, I told him, and Daniele Albertazzi commented that if I had been able to do even 2% of what I said, we were already set. I almost tremble at this memory than when I was playing: I wasn’t pushed by anyone, I arrived, and brought a little breeze of optimism that was good for everyone. There was a great performance from Pete Myers, as well as Dallamora, captain Albertazzi, Mauro Bonino. The following year I asked for the bonus for the promotion, in society they lay down laughing saying ‘ok, put in the amount you want’ because nobody believed it and what mattered would only be salvation. But that day I acquired a new family, and in the meantime I saw my son born, my father die, and a bond was born that has never been broken. When they called me I always came. And I remember how those at Fossa allowed me to play a game with the Bosnian national team, I who had had to choose Slovenia, when the players slept almost secretly. My whole family has seen Bologna, and when I had the opportunity to go to Virtus twice, I said ‘I respect you, but I just can’t do it’ and they took my place with Smodis. Because certain values still exist, perhaps mine was madness, but that madness has allowed me to still be welcomed here in this way. And in front of any charity project I will never back down.
That day I really didn’t think I had made history, when the pitch invasion started I thought I had to run away to the locker room because in Yugoslavia usually with a pitch invasion you get beaten up. I saw an avalanche take the field, and then I realized that it was our slice of the public celebrating. I hadn’t been the first pick, I didn’t have great managers, it’s something that happened a few days before I scored 47 points against Lorenzo Williams who then became a great defender in Boston. And that game in Reggio wasn’t easy: usually in Fortitudo you lose the easy games and win the difficult ones. I was a mover, but with excellent wheels and excellent drivers, we have never been bourgeois but we are the ones who have always managed to scratch at the right time”
Meanwhile, Teo has also signed for Fossa’s initiative in favor of the wild card Virtus in the Euroleague.