Italy-Serbia, the joy of Gianmarco Pozzecco and Simone Fontecchio

Italy-Serbia, the joy of Gianmarco Pozzecco and Simone Fontecchio

We shocked the world”: that was Gianmarco Pozzecco’s lapidary statement to the microphones of Sky Sport after his Italy’s 78-76 victory over Serbia. “I am a lucky man becauseé trusting these guys, from the players to the staff, to the president, è very easy – then adds the Italian coach -. We have no regrets, in life perfection does not exist. You can look back and say we did what we had to do. We live for emotions and today they gave us a lot of them”.

Here is the star of the evening with his 30 points, Simone Fontecchio: “The dedication è for my family, my wife and my daughter who are my life, I do all this for them. I went looking for something inside me in the third quarter when we were down 16. We looked for the last strength we all had inside. We made a tremendous effort, Datome gave us an incredible push, è it was beautiful to see the baskets he made, phenomenal. When you put 1, 2, 3 then the basket goes wide. Victory always starts with defense, from there; you get energy and confidence. Today more than that was difficult to do, we are happy with the victory, let’s see the others, let’s check what we can control, let’s beat Puerto Rico then see what happens”.

Closing with captain Gigi Datome: “I have to say thank you to my teammates that if they don’t pass it to me… è it was a beautiful competition, from the national team. All the fans will be crazy. Now we are on the ball, we are alive, today we enjoy it, è it was a great match against a great team. They went up so much in physical intensity in defense at the beginning of the third quarter, we suffered, but with balance we stayed in the game continuing to believe, then everyone put an important paw to get to the final result. We did our game plan, sure shooting well from 3 helps, Fontecchio had an amazing game, but he è this, everyone put a brick but he a bigger one”.