Without friends or acquaintances in Memphis, Marc Gasol and Alex Formento they often had time to go for a coffee. Restlessness, mischief and a lot of chatter. One day, Gasol surprised his friend. “And if we found a basketball club?”. A bold idea, perhaps so at the outset. So much so, that one and the other left it parked. Some time later, it has moved from the conditional to the present. Girona Basketball has been a reality since 2014 and both of them, among others, are responsible for it. Gasol still plays there. He squeezes his career and he does it in the ACB, until now the roof of this very young club. Formento has left the organization after playing a few roles there. They will cross paths again on Sunday, in Vitoria. One, on the track. And the other, acting as assistant to Joan Peñarroya, leader of Cazoo Baskonia from the bench.
It has been 17 years that Formento has spent competing, between EBA and LEB, with five promotions and even more shirt changes. He trained at the quarry of La Salle Bonanova, before chaining destinies: Pineda, Cornellà, Inca, Ferrol, Mérida, Don Benito, L’Hospitalet, Zamora, Valls, Tijola and Esplugues fill his curriculum. It was his turn to compete against Gasol. It coincided, from time to time, and a friendship was born that still lasts. The relationship was good, to the point that in 2010, when Formento decided to let it be, the center of Sant Boi opened the doors for him to move to Memphis. Help to get to know college basketball up close, to train as a coach. And also, isn’t it, to keep company. Coffee and more coffee. Conversations of all kinds, like the one in which the first seed was planted. “And if we found a basketball club?”.
With nothing firm, without setting it in motion yet, the idea had to live a hiatus. Gasol continued to play, Formento returned to Spain to start working in a representation agency. Exceeded this time, to load again. Then it wasn’t just a proposition. The machinery began to start. Formento would even discuss it with Carles Puigdemont, then mayor of Girona. Vist-i-plau and the Montfalgars pavilion that became the first home. It was 2014, the starting point of the club now known as Básquet Girona. The one who gathered two hundred children to do a casting and thus choose their first protagonists. First, he became vice president because Gasol was still playing and doing so across the Atlantic. In 2017, a slightly more daring proposition. Make a senior team, starting from the bottom. Formento then became its sports director. He was promoted from EBA to Silver and in 2019, he changed his position again. He left the offices to sit on the bench. He became their first coach.
Formento has been vice-president of the club, also the sporting director and even the coach in that season, 19/20, which secured promotion to LEB Plata
Profitable experience. Accidental, too, because the outbreak of the coronavirus caused a strange season, 19/20. But historical, at the same time. That Basketball Girona, with 19 wins and 6 losses at the time of the break, he did enough to make the jump to LEB Or. Major success and virtual street. But Formento was leaving; another trainer profile was preferred. Being part of a coaching staff was so boring to him that he opted for this path, joining Barça CBS, now in the Women’s League, and then traveling to Mexico to manage the Jalisco Astros. A short and intense stage at the same time. The previous step to land in Vitoria and work alongside Joan Peñarroya. Sunday, time to open the box of memories. In front of him, in the ACB and as a rival, that club that he and Marc Gasol decided to found while having a coffee years ago. What things life has.
