Paròn Zorzi and “his” player “Work and technique: perfection”

Best wishes from the coach who led the champion for 4 seasons at Reyer

The story

«Happy birthday Praja, continue to train as you have always done and to maintain that physique that I have always envied you. The only thing you don’t have to do is try to beat tennis with your wife Sonja, you’ll always lose. “

Word of Tonino Zorzi, 86-year-old coach from Gorizia, simply a legend of Reyer in the Eighties (and not only). One who as soon as you call him on the phone “gets back on the bench” where he won 5 promotions in Serie A.

“Praja, Praja. I have had to visit him for two years in Belgrade with two of my friends from Gorizia, when this damned virus goes off on a plane and I go to hug him “, he says on the phone from his home in Gorizia.

Dalipagic today 70 years old for the “paròn” is two memorable anecdotes, an indelible memory of that late January afternoon at the Arsenale and a technical fresco. «The first anecdote? We of Reyer ’80 / ’81, the illegal one in A2 who then lost the Korac Cup final in overtime as well, are away in Zagreb. Air traffic controllers strike in Rome, prolonged stop at the airport. Dalipagic, who doesn’t like Haywood very much saves him from safe prison. It happens that the American wants to call his girlfriend Iman, a beautiful model, using a purse of Italian tokens. He can’t do it and starts kicking the cabin apart. They arrest him, Praja solves everything. In that Yugoslavia, now at the end of his race, he was simply a god ». The other anecdote? «Haywood, always him, does not arrive at the sports hall, we have to play, Praja has a galvanized knee-high: sprained ankle. It is out. He cannot walk. he says to me: “Coach you can’t play without Americans”. He gets everything removed, plays, scores thirty points in the middle of the game until the other one arrives. Enough?”. Yes, too, paròn. And of that late afternoon of January 25, 1987 when Dalipagic rewrote history by scoring 70 points in the Giomo’s victory over Dietor Virtus Bologna? «I’m just telling you that he put in 35 in the first half without my noticing. They made him go to the left convinced they would put him in difficulty and he … dribble, arrest, shoot, forelock … often with a foul ». Paròn, what do you say to the young people of Praja? “He worked like a mule, he always scored: the perfect player.” –