Seletti, tribute to Costa: «We play basketball here. Unique in Italy»

An exciting four-year period ends for Limonta Costa Masnaga, which after this week’s double knockout against San Gabriele Milano says goodbye to coach Paolo Seletti. The poet of basketball based on freedom of initiative will in fact return to Emilia Romagna (he is originally from Reggio) to train Faenza in A1.

«It is not easy to summarize these four years – explains Seletti -. I have reached a new awareness and consideration here at Costa. I arrived as a rookie in A1, inheriting the extraordinary work of Fabrizio Ranieri, Gabriele Pirola and Pier Rossi, which I then completed. The goals have always been: to improve ourselves, to improve the players and to improve the structure. I can say that, yes, we succeeded».

With Seletti on the bench, Limonta achieved three saves in Serie A1, accessing the Scudetto playoffs twice, qualified once for the Final Eight of the A1 Italian Cup, once for the Final Eight of the A2 Italian Cup and played one A2 playoffs. «In all the years we have achieved the maximum goal we set for ourselves – he relaunches -. In every season in the second round we have done better than the first leg, a hallmark of the improvements and the quality of the work done. I worked with the best Italian executive in the world of basketball “Bicio” Ranieri achieves results that others don’t get, despite having greater economic resources. However, he doesn’t want to sit at the table of the powerful, but he does it in his small self at Costa, because he doesn’t want to participate in a game that doesn’t belong to him, in this he has my esteem. He has great planning, planning and reasoning skills, he manages to implement everything he plans ».

«I worked with a top staff – he adds -: Rossi, Niccolò Ranieri and Nicolò Airaghi are the best kept secrets of women’s basketball. A trio that is the hard core of a staff that includes other great professionals such as Masha Maiorano. I could name others, these people are the elite of their trade».

The game and organization system that made Costa’s fortunes. «We built a staff that was able to compare notes to create a system that then developed thanks to the players – he points out -. The game system based on freedom of initiative was born and raised in Costa, the players created it together with us. Costa and I will bring this system to our future experiences».

Seletti’s thanks to his players. «I am proud to have trained generational talents such as the twins Matilde and Eleonora Villa or Vittoria Allievi, just to name a few. Thanks also to Laura Spreafico and Lisa Jablonowski, who have made this system grow together with us over the years. The players guided us, we didn’t drag them, but they dragged us».

«Costa for me will always remain the basketball club where basketball is really played – he concludes -. A unicum in Italy».