Livorno The basketball world is in mourning: he is dead Manrico Vaianiphysical education teacher, basketball teacher, who has trained and seen generations of Livorno basketball players grow.
Born in 1953, historic teacher of the Cecioni high school, he turned 71 last March. He was fighting an illness which however had not distanced him from the parquet, from teaching the fundamentals, from his kids, who he continued to follow within the glorious walls of the PalaCosmelli until 20 days ago when his health conditions worsened.
His last team was the Under 14 Leoni Amaranto, a return to his origins after three decades of senior basketball, as he recalled in a recent interview with Tirreno, a group he was in love with and looked after as if it were made up of his own children. «I left this age group a long time ago, at the end of the 1980s, when I was at Libertas – he said -. We won the Italian title and they kept telling me “you’re perfect for that category”. And so I immediately decided to go to Piombino to compete in Serie C, winning the championship, but this is a detail. I have never wanted labels, I have often changed, also embracing women’s, in La Spezia, which was the best Italian ranked in the Fiba Cup, then reaching the decisive phases for the scudetto with important players injured. And I’m always here wondering what I’ll do when I grow up”, he smiled.
The first time on the bench was in the PL youth team. «Marco Bonciani called me – he remembered –. We were doing well, until one day they dismantled the sector and I found myself on the loose. I moved to Libertas with Pezzini.”
From there the leap into the senior categories, where Vaiani became the magician of promotions: in 1990 he was head coach in Serie C and with Pallacanestro Piombino he won the B2 series. In 1991 he reached the playoffs and in 1992 he made the jump to B1. In 1995-96 in Castelfiorentino he won two consecutive championships, moving from C2 to B2. In the 1999-2000 season he was head coach in C1 of Pallacanestro Livorno which with Crespi and Contesini achieved a sporting miracle: «In two years we flew to B1, leading a team with 9 Livorno players and one Pisan», recalls Andrea Falleni, athletic trainer from PL school, now at the Leoni together with Manrico.
In those years Vaiani collaborated as an assistant with the national coach Carlo Recalcati on experimental formations. «Charlie – he remembered – gave me the opportunity to follow the young people of B1 who were interesting from a Serie A perspective. I spent hours a day watching videos of matches, and it helped me a lot».
After the PL, he left men’s basketball to play two women’s A1 series championships: in 2003-04 at Basket Spezia Club, with whom he played in a championship semi-final, and in 2004-05 with Mercede Basket Alghero.
Vaiani died on the afternoon of Monday 13 May in his home in Antignano, surrounded by the affection of his children and his wife Antonella. He asked to wear the colors of Us Livorno for the last time, the club he had been strongly linked to since 2019.
2024-05-13 23:53:49
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