Marco Sodini, coach of the Italy U18 national team, interviewed in recent days by StrettoWeb, declared: “Viola had Serie A and didn’t have the structures, now they have the structures and need to return to Serie A“. The reference, in addition to the renewed Purple Planet, was clearly to PalaCalafiore. What coach Sodini and anyone who sees PalaCalafiore for the first time (or in any case not continuously), being enchanted by its grandeur, does not know, concerns some defects that make even one of the most important structures in Italian basketball look bad.
Flaws that make you look down in embarrassment. In recent days we have underlined the water that falls into the structure when it rains. Today we find ourselves talking not about the post-match Viola-Messinaa very hot derby that took place last night, but of PalaCalafiore cubeunjustified absent from the match.
The imposing structure that overlooks the parquet (and there would also be something to talk about about that, luckily you just had to ‘get used to’ the color according to some…), remained closed for the entire duration of the match, except for a few appearances to please the sponsors at the beginning and end of the match. For the rest: scores to be read only on the small screens on the sidelines (because the other wall screen wasn’t even working), journalists and fans left without real-time statistics.
In addition to the disservice, seeing that large dark and dull cube brings to mind the past years in which the old man was abandoned to himself. The feeling is that history can repeat itself. Just over 9 months after the inauguration, while the Strait derby is being played, broadcast on social media and potentially visible throughout the world, What does Reggio Calabria look like with the cube, which bears the symbol of the city, not working?
Above all, why was the cube out of order today? Technical disruptions, maintenance-related problems, temporary failure. Or is there something else? We will investigate. Meanwhile, the Administration doesn’t make a great impression on us. The fans, rightly, get angry: “but can we have something that works?”writes one, angrily, to our editorial staff.
A question to ask the mayor Falcomata who, in recent months, had presented the structure with great fanfare, speaking of a cube “like what you see in NBA games“. You’re thinking too Lakers, with LeBron and Doncic on the court at the Crypto.com Arena, in front of 19,000 people, they showed up with the cube turned off. The news would go around the world and many heads would roll. Here in Reggio Calabria everything is normal, however.
And to think that getting that cube, promised for the start of last season (October 2024), then postponed to November, December, January and installed in February 2025, just before Italy’s arrival at PalaCalafiore, took a long time, about 5 months. In the summer a few pixels had given up, in December, with not even 1 full year of life, a game of ‘blacked out screens’.
