It seems to Marcos Casini that the years do not pass him. He is already 40, but he still looks like that youth who made up the squad of Athens champion of the National League 1998/1999, in the remembered final against Independiente de General Pico.
In that unforgettable 1999 for Casini it was Stimulus Award from La Voz del Interior and Mundo D.
The 1.88-meter left-handed guard, born May 25, 1980, has spent almost half his life playing basketball in Italy. This season the dispute in the Real Sebastiani Rieti, a team that plays in Serie B, with a project to fight for promotion.
He had already played three seasons, between 2016 and 2019, in the other team in the city, in the NPC Rieti Pallacanestro. Rieti is in central Italy, close to Rome.
“It is an ambitious project, with pretensions to be promoted to the A-2 in Italy. It is not easy but we are going to try to be champions,” Casini tells World D. “They called me and convinced me.”
“Marquitos” is alone in Rieti. “I’m still Marquitos. Everyone here calls me that even though I lack hair, hehe,” he says. Casini’s wife, Franchesca, and their children Isabel (age 8) and Juan Gabriel (age three) stayed in Cucciago, where they have the family home.
In 2003 he came to Italy for the first time. He was 23 years old and joined Aurora Basket Jesi, which that season won promotion to the Italian A-1. “It was my first year playing outside and we were champions,” he recalls.
“I was a boy and I wanted to know another culture, another country and try myself at another level of basketball. It has always been a beautiful experience. Getting to Jesi helped me a lot,” he said.
Until 2007, Casini stayed at Jesi, completing four seasons. In the 2007/2008 campaign, the Cordoba went to Cantú.
In 2008/2009 he returned to the country and to the National League to play for Boca Juniors, and again “to cross the pond” to return to “his place in the world”, Italian basketball.
Pasó por Pistoia, Scafati, Ferentino, Casale Monferrato, Viola Reggio Calabria, Ravenna, the tres temporadas in the NPC Rieti Basketball, Lecco in the 20019/2020, y la vuelta in Riete, but in Real Sebastiani.
“We Argentines have many defects, but also virtues, and one of the main ones is that we are fighters. We fight to play, to work, to eat. We Argentines are loved, we give everything,” Casini highlights.
“The Argentine claw, as they say, is highly valued, they know that we fight each ball like the last,” adds “Marquitos.”
-Are you going to stay in Italy or are you going to return to Argentina when your career ends?
-I think my life is here. But we always talk to my wife that we have the opportunity to live in both countries, we have two countries, Italy and Argentina. We are ready to assemble the suitcase where work calls us. I am doing the coaching course, and always attentive to what happens, we never close any doors.
The school, Athens and teaching
Marcos Casini attended college St Thomas. They were days of soccer and basketball, until the “teacher” of physical education, Medardo Ligorria, took him to Athens.
“I played in all training categories until in 1998 Rubén Magnano, who was a coach, took us to train with the League team. It was unexpected for me, I started in a school and suddenly I was in a champion team”, Casini relates.
“It was a team full of champions, but not only because of the trophies they had won, because of the teachings they gave us to the youngest, from the first minute of the first practice they were helping us,” he said.
“Sharing with Marcelo (Milanesio), Pichi (Héctor Campana), Diego (Osella) and many other great players for Lea Palladino, Gringo Pelussi … It was a dream for me,” he highlighted.
That season, the 1998/1999 season when Atenas was crowned champion against Independiente de Pico, Leonardo Gutiérrez arrived at the club for the first time. “We shared a room with Leo, the two families became very close friends. There is a great friendship,” said Casini.
“The same as with Steve Edwards. It was a phenomenal group. For me it was touching the sky with my hands,” confessed Casini, from that boy who was not 20 years old to this 40 with a long journey through Italian basketball.
“One day Marcelo invited us to have a barbecue at his house and showed us a room where he had all his trophies and memories. That day was indelible for me,” he adds.
Marcos Casini. In his youth stage with the Athens shirt. (The Voice / File)
Yes brother Guillermo, two years younger, plays and is a coach in Almeria, Spain, and the youngest, Maximiliano, better known as Cocó, is a physical trainer. Together with Nora, her mother, and Alberto, her father, they make up a very close family, beyond the distance.
“We are very united, in good and bad, always together,” said Marcos.
Casini closes the contact remembering the Stimulus award, won in 1999. “I still have the framed photo hanging in my room. The years go by and that award has more value. It is a recognition of the sacrifice that children and also parents make. I value the Stimulus “,” Marquitos “completed.
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