From the beaches to the gym, from the views by the sea to the selfies with the Mucrone in the background: the common thread of the social profiles of the old and new basketball players of Pallacanestro Biella will change from tomorrow, the day of the first arrivals in the city and medical examinations, a little ‘less than usual in time of coronavirus. The program of the week has already been dictated: Wednesday and Thursday morning under the eyes of the doctors, with the bureaucratic steps at the beginning of the year, such as the handover of the keys to the new houses, on Thursday afternoon the athletic tests at the Forum, indispensable for the trainer Roberto Marocco to fix the fixed points for personalized work, from Friday real training sessions between the Fisiokinetik center in Vigliano and the gym, with the first schemes to be memorized under the eyes of the new coach Andrea Zanchi.
«The important thing for us – said the general manager Damiano Olla – is how we will arrive at 3 October, the Sunday of the first day of A2. We are a team that will have to make a path of growth starting tomorrow, a path that must make us arrive as ready as possible for our debut in the league, as a group even before being on the pitch ». The group is done: the medical examinations, with a closer look by the socio-orthopedist Pier Giorgio Castelli on a knee operated on six months ago, are the last necessary step before the signing of the contract for Tommaso Bianchi: the play-guard , 25 years old and a troubled season behind him that began in testing in Scafati and ended in Crema with a ligament injury, has worked in the last few days in Tuscany with Andrea Niccolai, another who only lacks the signature to formalize his confirmation as assistant coach . The two have known each other very well and for some time: Niccolai was driving the Under 18 team in Montecatini where Bianchi had begun to show off his talent. With him the group of Italians will begin the preparation, with the confirmed Bertetti, Pollone and Vincini and the new Infante, Morgillo, Soviero and Porfilio, reinforced by four grafts of the youth teams: Loro, Pietra, Aimone and Finetti. The Americans Tj Cromer and Steven Davis will arrive a few days late: the bureaucratic procedures are made a little more complicated by the pandemic and, in Davis’s case, we must also wait for the second dose of vaccine he will receive in the US. But, as Olla says, the important thing is to be ready in October: «Beyond the opponents we will face, we must have the patience and the awareness to look at ourselves and at the progress we will make. It would be great to be able to count on the support of all our fans for the two derbies of the second round. We will see what the developments regarding the capacity of the sports halls will be ».