De ‘Longhi will host the preliminary round from 13 September Ten days before the official start of the season against Napoli
/ TREVISO
Ten and a half years later, Palaverde returns to host an international basketball event: one of the six Qualification Rounds of the Champions League, which will give access to the relative regular season. The last time was the EuroCup Final Four, April 16-17, 2011: Unics Kazan triumphed over Sevilla, Benetton fourth. News in the air for some time and official since yesterday: Treviso Basket had put forward its candidacy to Fiba Europe, which after having carefully evaluated the logistical situation replied with a yes. It will be group B with six teams from 13 to 17 September: dry matches, the first qualifies. On 13 the first two matches of the quarter-finals: De ‘Longhi, absolute freshman, will face the London Lions, in the other challenge the Dutch of Leiden against the Belgians of Belfius Mons-Hainaut. On the 15th the semifinals: the winner of Treviso-London will face the Danish champions of the Bakken Bears, one of Belgium and the Dutch will meet the Belarusians of Minsk. On the 17th the final will decide the team participating in group D with the Greeks from Aek Athens, the Latvians from Riga and the Hungarians from Szombathely.
It is useless to underline that for those who are only now facing the great stage this is already an excellent “political” success: naturally the organization of the Treviso “bubble” will entail many difficulties, even for all the health regulations to be respected, not to mention that ‘The problem of postponing the Super Cup dates also had to be solved.
And in fact, very punctual, the LBA has launched the calendars, obviously facilitating the European path of De ‘Longhi: on September 3 Napoli-TvB, on September 5 Brescia-TvB, on 7 TvB-Brescia and on 9 TvB-Naples, with the opponents to challenge each other in the last two rounds. So four significant tests to present himself, on the 13th, in top condition to snatch the European pass.
TvB’s satisfaction is expressed by the digì Giovanni Favaro, the true architect of both the participation in the preliminaries and the assignment of the event: «We are proud that Fiba has chosen us in the year in which Treviso returns to the European stage. The name of our city is important, we want to honor ourselves even off the pitch to guarantee hospitality to foreign delegations and give the right setting for the event ».
Organizing in time for Covid and for newbies is no joke. «Yes, also because we will have to offer maximum security, in addition to the requirements for hosting the teams and TV production. The hope is that we can experience it with the public, even with a reduced capacity: we hope that the vaccination campaign will bring good news. The hope is to challenge Riga on the first day of the group on 5 October at Palaverde ».
Waiting for the last market bang (the foreigner in the external department, profiles from Eastern Europe are also evaluated), the promising Vittorio Bartoli – already seen with the team that hit the playoffs – will go to gain experience at Orlandina, while Simone Barbante is at the Blue Star. –