(ANSA) – BOLOGNA, AUGUST 11 – The series of four friendlies that the Italian national basketball team will play from tomorrow to August 20, in view of qualifying for the 2023 World Cup and for the 2022 EuroBasket, starts from Bologna, from Basket city, European Championship which will see one of the four groups played at the Milan Forum from 2 to 8 September.
Tomorrow, at the Unipol Arena in Casalecchio di Reno, at 20.30, the boys of coach Gianmarco Pozzecco will face France.
The coach turned his first thoughts to Gabriele Procida and Matteo Spagnoli, who were authorized to leave the Pinzolo gathering: “They stayed with us for a week and I realized how much they wanted to be part of this group – underlined the Coach – We need to build a group of 25-30 athletes who feel part of a sort of family, which with my staff we are trying to build. Tomorrow we will go to field 15, then I will have to make other choices, eliminate three more, it hurts me, but it’s part of the game. “
As for the French opponents, Pozzecco does not hide the fact that they are “one of the strongest teams in the world” the boys will be stimulated by playing against 7-8 NBA players and I expect that we will have help from the public. “There are already 4500 tickets sold for the match and the aim is to exceed 5,000.
For captain Luigi Datome “it will be a challenging game, but it will show us many things that we will have to pay attention to if we want to play well in the European Championship”. After two days of rest, the national team will meet again in Bologna and then leave for Montpellier and return the visit to the Bleus. Once the French match is over, the Azzurri will fly to Hamburg for the Supercup: a match against Serbia on August 19 and a match between Germany and the Czech Republic on August 20. Following, the official matches for the World Cup qualifiers: August 24 against Ukraine in Latvia and August 27 against Georgia in Brescia. Then, the debut at Eurobasket, on 2 September at the Milan Forum against Estonia. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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