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Gigi Datome and Nicolò Melli are the two players with the most appearances in the men’s national basketball team which will play the World Cup in the Philippines from 25 August. Italy started preparing for the tournament about ten days ago and the two players, in collaboration with the Italian Basketball Federation, have decided to talk about their approach to the World Cup with a podcast.
The podcast is called Afternoon: is a declared quote from Morning of the Post, of which both Datome and Melli declare themselves «great listeners and fans». After an introduction, Datome launches each episode with “a phrase I’ve dreamed of saying for years”, an adapted quote from the phrase used by Francesco Costa in Morning: «This is Afternoon, let’s begin» (Costa’s phrase is «This is Morning, let’s begin»). In each episode, the two players host a teammate, who is interviewed and “introduced” to the fans.
Afternoon it is currently the most listened to sports-themed podcast on various platforms and in its video version on YouTube it has about 40,000 views for each episode.
Melli and Datome have also been teammates in Olimpia Milano in the last two seasons: the one that ended at the end of June with the Scudetto was the last in Gigi Datome’s career, who announced his retirement after the World Cup in the Philippines. Both have experiences abroad and in the NBA, the North American professional league. And they are among the first top-level athletes in Italy to be featured in a first-person podcast, a format that has become increasingly popular and influential in professional sport. Again in the field of basketball and the NBA, the best known example is that of Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, who has been leading the Draymond Green Showa podcast that also aired during the 2022 NBA Finals, played and won by the Warriors.
Compared to that model, Afternoon it is decidedly lighter, it does not reveal any particular technical-tactical background of the national team but aims to entertain and bring the fans closer to the team coached by Gianmarco Pozzecco.
Datome often underlines how the initiative of the podcast (“the fault”, he says) was mainly Melli, captain of Olimpia Milano, who already during the first period of the pandemic, when he was a player of the New Orleans Pelicans NBA team, made a five-part podcast: “N” the podcast by Nicolò Melli: he recorded it in the Orlando “bubble,” the place where all of the NBA had been put to carry out the season. In each episode Melli hosted an Italian from the championship, from Danilo Gallinari to Sergio Scariolo, at the time assistant coach of the Toronto Raptors, and spoke about life in that “bubble” and their respective experiences in the NBA.
Melli says that the idea of Afternoon was born after a long planning of “at least three seconds”, and adds that he would never have made the podcast without the collaboration of Datome, with whom “Instagram live broadcasts had worked a lot during the pandemic”: “The idea was to tell a little of the “behind the scenes” of a training camp, something that has never been done, and at the same time introduce the fans to some of our younger and lesser-known teammates. Plus there was this thing about Gigi’s last tournament as a player.”
In the eight episodes currently online, Melli and Datome, in addition to recounting details of life and training in the training camp of the Italian national team, have in fact interviewed a teammate each time, starting with Simone Fontecchio, who plays in the NBA with the Utah Jazz. During the interviews we talked about basketball but also about other things, including the passions of the players off the field.
In the interviews Melli and Datome also created rather amusing situations during which they “forced” their teammates to hypothesize game choices that could have put them in difficulty with one of the two interviewers: «You’re on the counterattack and Melli is on your side and Datome: to which of the two do you pass the ball?»; or other more unsettling ones, such as: «Let’s talk about important things: Macine or Abbracci?». The dispute over the biscuits, says Melli, is taking on unexpected dimensions: «The fans are waiting for us at the end of the matches or training sessions to deliver us packets of biscuits».
The series of interviews will continue with the other members of the team and the technical staff: the last guest was coach Gianmarco Pozzecco, defined by the couple of podcasters as “the most terrified of all”.
Melli, Datome and behind them Simone Fontecchio in Milan in 2022 (ANSA/DANIEL DAL ZENNARO)
Melli is the most active in organizing the podcast and in defining the themes and times, Datome introduces variables, such as the so-called “gigionate” (complete with a break and graphics), stories of episodes of real life in which the carelessness of the player has led to comical effects (wrong times, players mistaken for masseurs, lost planes). The making of each episode takes more or less an hour, to which is added a preparation of the themes, the lineup and the questions for the interviewee the night before.
The editing, sound and graphic inserts are made by the Federation’s social team, but the cuts are limited. Datome recounts: «In the first episode we interrupted ourselves two or three times, we repeated a block or two, but already from the second we went with “good first time”, and mostly off the cuff». Melli and Datome say they agree on some of the questions, but not all, to leave a little mutual surprise and spontaneity. The good understanding between the two hosts is one of the things that make the podcast particularly successful. Datome says: «We pretend to be in the locker room, we make fun of each other and have fun because we are able to talk about the things we want in the way we want».
Although the tenor of the podcast is very light and of «pure entertainment, even of a low level» (according to the ironic definition of the protagonists), the theme of a story about oneself not filtered by the traditional media exists, because, says Datome, «after many years in the world of sport the interviews are all a bit the same and not very stimulating». Melli adds: «I don’t particularly like overexposure in relations with the media, instead I like this idea of saying the things I think, in an unfiltered version, that cannot be manipulated or even simply without someone “quoting” the words ».
The plan is to continue with the podcast until at least the start of the World Cup, also recording an episode on the plane en route to Asia, hosting some personalities from outside the national team and avoiding working on it on matchdays. Once the tournament has started, the podcast will stop or become less frequent, because Melli and Datome don’t want it to steal attention or time from preparation and concentration on matches.
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— Italbasket (@Italbasket) July 28, 2023
The national team schedule includes the Acropolis Tournament in Athens, Wednesday and Thursday against Serbia and Greece, then the match in Ravenna against Puerto Rico on August 13, which will be the last in Italy in Datome’s career (it has been defined as the “DatHome Day”). On 17 August the team will leave for China: in the city of Shenzhen it will play two friendlies (20 August against Brazil, 21 against New Zealand). The World Cup in the Philippines will begin on August 25, and will last for those who reach the final until September 10: Italy’s group opponents are Angola, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines (the matches will be broadcast by Rai, Dazn and Sky Sport).
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2023-08-09 07:13:58
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