Today transfer to Novara: the Champions operation begins. Celebrations already over, tomorrow there is the first leg semifinal
Mirco Cavallin / TREVISO
Who wins celebrates, who loses explains. One of the unwritten laws of sport was also applied to the Italian Cup final between Conegliano and Novara: it happened, with reversed roles, when the Igor beat Imoco, winning trophies and leaving the panthers the bitterness of watching the game. award ceremony from the sidelines.
Much has been said and written since Sunday evening about Paola Egonu’s specific weight in the economy of the Gialloblù victory, as if she were the only player on the field. Well, the Rimini match, from the point of view of the distribution of the balls, is in line with the rest of the Conegliano season: on the contrary, just over a third of the attacking balls arrived (35%, the average is 32%), unlike the recent challenges with Scandicci and with Busto, where the choice on Egonu has exceptionally exceeded 40%. Compared to his seasons and his victories with Novara, some factors have changed: in addition to having made great strides in defense, Egonu has greatly increased his attack efficiency, despite having fewer balls available. In the (for her) victorious Champions League final she closed with 39% and 27 points, the other night she scored 10 more with 63%. And even the seasonal averages do not differ much from these numbers: with the current percentages and the play load that the Igor had (unthinkable in Santarelli’s system) the 50 points per race would not be a utopia.
As she said herself, the credit goes to the team, which provides them with the best options with the first and second touch; his athletic and ballistic skills do the rest, albeit with some blunder that sometimes peeps out.
Not only Egonu, therefore, even if the novelty of the attack from place 3 is a further tactical variant in the hands of Wolosz; it was the captain of the panthers who gave a key to the game by writing “we are taken for granted but happy” as a comment on the photo that portrays her with her companions while they bite into the gold medal in the locker room. The reference was, on the one hand, to those who almost automatically and obviously give an Imoco victory, when instead every result was achieved by beating the opponents on the field, demonstrating their strength in the decisive moments, overcoming the difficulties gradually encountered; on the other hand the allusion was to the presumed predictability of the game of the panthers, a fact denied by the numbers and the development of the games. The same opponents know very well, in fact, that the attack options in Wolosz’s hands are almost always four, generally very fast, and none are so obvious and, in fact, obvious. But it is precisely the panthers who are the first to be aware that no result comes from grace received or from awe; the opponents, especially those of lower rankings, always find great stimuli (“we have nothing to lose”) in trying to scratch the long unbeaten run of Conegliano who, in turn, has learned not to underestimate anyone.
Meanwhile, today, with the transfer to Novara, the Champions operation begins: tomorrow there is the first leg semi-final and there is no more time to celebrate or to explain. –