Playoff scudetto, Trento awaits Olimpia Milano: Paolo Galbiati doesn't mince words

The Italian basketball championship playoff scudetto will kick off on Saturday, May 17, with Trento and Olimpia Milano kicking off the first of the four scheduled series at 6 p.m. (the others are Virtus Bologna-Venezia, Trapani-Reggio Emilia and Brescia-Trieste). On the eve of game 1 at “The T Quotidiano Arena”, Paolo Galbiati issued his challenge to a club he knows very well, having coached its youth teams for six years.

“It will be a good series, an important stimulus and a great challenge – said the Vimercate-born coach, class of 1984 -. We have earned the right to play the first two games at home, so we hope the arena will be warm and the crowd will be vocal. Any opponent in the playoffs would be difficult to face, but Milan is clearly a team of the highest level: it has recovered key pieces, is unpredictable in depth and talent, has enormous experience and is led by the most important coach in our league, one of the greatest in the history of Italian basketball”.

“I am aware of the work this team has done – Galbiati then added, speaking then about his players -: they have worked hard, with seriousness, but above all with a great human component. It reminds me a lot of a historical group for me, the Under 17 of ’96/’97 that I coached in Milan and to whom I owe a lot in my coaching career. With them I could ask anything: they would throw themselves under the Milan subway for each other”.

“What fascinates me about this group is that they celebrate each other, there is no envy, only enthusiasm for each other’s successes. My dream is for this journey to continue: this team gives me a lot of confidence and reminds me of the Aquila of the EuroCup semifinals and the Scudetto finals, hoping it will do even better, because Toto (Forray, the HCL captain, ed.) deserves it”.