Gianmarco Pozzecco bluntly on Luka Doncic (and winks at Gennaro Gattuso)

Eve of the round of 16 for Italy at EuroBasket 2025: second in its group behind Greece, the Azzurri will face Slovenia, which finished third in Group D behind France and one of the surprises of the tournament, Poland (which compared to Slovenia and Israel finished ahead for the avulse classification).

Gianmarco Pozzecco, technical commissioner of the’Italbasket, did not mince words in describing his feelings: “For games like this against Slovenia, there is no great motivation to convey to the athletes. It will be a pleasure and I want the guys to be happy to take the court. I have been living my players since July 23 and I know how much physical and mental energy they have faced to stay focused and always compete in a round like ours. And I also know very well that in front of them is an extremely complicated path”.

“However, I have great confidence in them and what I wish them is to give themselves the same concentration that they had in the first five games– he added -. Impossible to stop Luka Doncic because they can’t even do that in the NBA. We will try to put him in trouble trying not to make him have a crazy game but we know his point averages and it is logical to expect him to continue like that. We will have to watch out for him and all the situations he is capable of creating on the court that facilitate his teammates”.

Concluding, the Azzurri coach (who wanted to again remember Giorgio Armani by ideally hugging the great designer’s right-hand man, Leo Dell’Orco) and sent a message to the newly appointed coach of the national soccer team, Gennaro Gattuso, who is fresh off his 5-0 success against Estonia in his debut. “I send great good luck to Rino Gattuso, who made a great start yesterday at the helm of our national soccer team. I am a fan of his and I believe his presence will compact everyone” he said.