The 22-year-old Dinamo center left Senegal at the age of 13. He has never seen the family again since
SASSARI. For an athlete, is there anything more exciting in the world than competing for the championship final against the strongest team in the league playing as a protagonist? Of course yes: for example, seeing your parents again after nine years. This is what will happen today to Ousmane Diop, the 22-year-old pivot-winger of Dinamo Banco di Sardegna, who leaves Milan for his homeland, Senegal. A story that is unbelievable, if we think that it was 2013, when he left his city of Rufisque, half an hour from Dakar. Since then, only telephone and social contacts with his family. But Ousmane already had big shoulders, and not just because of his 204 centimeters by 98 kilos.
«You cannot imagine the emotion, since we have stopped with the championship commitments I have only been thinking about this. I get excited every time I imagine that moment, I can’t wait. And tomorrow (today, editor’s note) I will finally leave ». She wanted to do it in the past few years, but the pandemic has gotten in the way. Now is the time: is this more exciting or the wait for a Scudetto final? «I really think the first – confesses the 22-year-old, who has Italian citizenship – staying so long away and seeing the time to see your parents approaching is not comparable to anything else. I am very attached to them, to my two sisters and to my brother, and I would not give them up for the world. “Now it is easier to understand how this mix of sympathy and determination was formed, Ousmane is one who, before harpooning rebounds and enduring door under the basket had to withstand all kinds of shots to win a place in life. “My father Ibra Diop is 72 years old, my mother Degun is 54. Of course neither I nor they thought we would be away so long when in 2013, I was little more than a child, it was decided that I would leave to study in Italy and to continue playing basketball ».
Diop says: «I was a child when I moved to Udine, from what has become my second family, which my parents already knew. that’s why they were calm, they knew I was going to a safe place. My “second father” had a basketball school. Then I was added to the Feletto company and so it all began. There were some difficult moments, but I immediately found myself very well ».
After two years in A2 with Udine, in 2018 he signed a four-year with Sassari who ran him in A2 at the former Dinamo Cagliari and at Turin, so the chance for A. “I’m also fine in Sassari, where we had a very good year – he says – it started like this, then we fixed everything, arriving in the semifinals and losing to the best team in Italy (Milan, ndc) ». For Ousmane an amazing season finale: «Unfortunately I was limited by last year’s knee problems, then I showed that when I feel good I always try to give something more». She is in front of a Milanese shop where he wants to buy and some gifts to bring to him, which he has recently bought a house with his sister. Next year still in Bancoblùi? When asked Ousmane places a bully outbreaker, but he is sure that he would be happy with a confirmation.