When numbers talk and they do so eloquently, the magnitude of a group cannot be denied. And the figures of the basketball club that has written the most important pages in the history of the sport in recent years are eloquent: in twelve years, twelve trophies. That means never once missing an appointment with an award that constantly rewards one’s work. It means giving continuity to the winning mentality of a club that, as the seasons go by, has never failed to win the leadership. But above all it means that as the decade has changed, Virtus Bologna has been able to change, renew itself and establish a quintet that is always extremely competitive. The latest candle to be lit on the Kinder cake is called Euroleague, the European club championship. But the current season has not yet finished and after winning the Italian Cup at the end of April, the “black Vs” could prove the show stealers of the season if they also bring home the current championship. That would be what has been labelled the Grand Slam, a term borrowed from tennis to mean winning all the top awards for which one competes in that season. Bologna the Learned could thus further strengthen its fame as “Basket City”, the city that lives, breathes and gets drunk on basketball. To understand what a win by their own club means to a Virtus or Fortitudo fan is something that has escaped many students of the various competitive games. No comparison with the phagocyting football environment can be made with the climate for example of a extra-large village. And the supremacy of one of the two clubs, including at the European level, only reinforces the other’s sports identity and readiness to do crazy things to affirm its own superiority. The greatness of the Kinder continues through mutations and innovations on which it was initially difficult to know which way to bet, though it would have been normal to expect a period of pause when the Chairman Alfredo Cazzola and the unquestioned ace Sasha Danilovic left the group that dominated in the ‘nineties. Bologna has been able to handle even notable upsets and replace those who “abdicated” with fresh forces of an ability that left their predecessors forgotten. One example that can stand for all is Emanuel Ginobili, purchased from the Reggio Calabria team; after seeing what the Argentinean lad was able to do in the recent Euroclub finals, who would have the courage to mourn Danilovic? The players change and the rest has to stay as stable as possible. This is the Virtus credo, despite the opinion of those who theorise about sporting revolutions to open winning cycles. Because, in analysing the phenomenal march of the Bologna black and whites one discovers that there have been two (!!) team managers - Bucci and the current Ettore Messina, to deliver twelve years of trophies, and that there were also two chairman before the current Madrigali. Continuity, therefore, also at the management level. Who knows if the message might not help chairmen in other sports who use a whirlwind of arrivals and departures to hide their own lack of organising ability. And the argument that each sport is different is not a valid one. And not even the fact that in basketball things in the changing rooms are easier to manage because, in good and ill, with flying changes everyone could have a chance. However a group is always a group, with bad temper, unpleasantness and strong characters. At times, one has a champion in the house and is unable to recognise him. And in most cases the difference is made by the environment in which the athlete is put in a condition to perform. The impetus and enthusiasm of those who want targets at all costs are not only insufficient, they may be counterproductive. Those who think that large investments in people in the sports world will always bring results have not taken account of the unpredictability factor that makes the world of competition so fascinating and unpredictable.

(traduzione Interpres sas-Giussano)