Before artistic gymnastics and athletics, showcase sports at the Olympics, in which the city has become a driving force not today, a reflection on basketball is necessary
«Oh but the stadium…» The refrain is always the same. It doesn’t matter what Brescia was the province with the best Italian medal list at Paris 2024 as well as in Tokyo three years earlier. The teams are doing well, especially basketball and water polo (the AN remains the only standard bearer in Europe for our province) waiting for volleyball to complete its dream, with men or women. But Italy is, and will always be, a football-centric nation: the photograph of the movement, in the eyes of the country, remains football. With it, theplant which hosts the city club. For this reason, despite excelling in many more disciplines than its cousins Bergamothe neighbors seem to be swimming in gold. The difference? All in the weight, not only Italian but European, of Atalanta. On the contrary, at the moment it is the stadium that is even more envied than the team that is playing in the Champions League for the fifth time this year. Gattuso’s Italy surprisingly chose to return to Bergamo to play in the dramatic play-off semi-final at the end of March to go to the World Cup: only at the beginning of September they had already been there against Estonia in the first ever match under the new coach. They were impressed with the facility and training facilities. The comparison between “us and them”, which in sporting terms is often won by Brescia, becomes merciless if limited only to the Italian national team: at the New Balance Arena, former Azzurri d’Italia and then Gewiss Stadium, in six months Italy will double the Azzurri’s all-time appearances at Rigamonti.
Only one, the very distant 4 June 1988 against Wales, who won 1-0 in Mompiano against the strongly Brescian-tinged team he led from Vicini and had the two charismatic leaders in Baresi and Altobelli.
Not even the push of the women’s movement, which paved the way for professionalism in the city, managed to convince the Federation: the current Rigamonti is sufficient for Serie B and Serie C, but is instead unsuitable for an international context. It’s not just aesthetic, the problem is structural. There are no preclusions in Rome for Brescia, on the contrary. And this is demonstrated by the broad openness shown by the government, not only by CONI, for those movements that in our land have been able to grow and create value recognized worldwide.
Before artistic gymnastics and athletics, showcase sports at the Olympics, in which the city has not yet become a driving force, a reflection on the basketball. The starting point in spike ball was much worse than in football. In 2010, when Corioni achieved its last promotion to Serie A, a basketball team had returned to the city after an oblivion that lasted 13 long years and was forced to play at San Filippo. There was a huge gap, which seemed unbridgeable. Now, 15 years later, the positions have been reversed. The rise to Serie A in 2016 accelerated the time to return to the old Eib, now modernized and called Palaleonessa, inaugurated in September 2018 when the club had already become Germani, with Mauro Ferrari injecting liquidity to help the passion of the Bragaglio-Bonetti tandem. The national team, two months later, was already here for Italy-Lithuania. Later, in 2022, with the club’s position consolidated but not yet at its current peaks (the first Scudetto final was played in June, now the team is first and has always chosen emerging coaches without significantly changing the squad), Italy had returned here for the European Championship rally and before that to challenge Georgia in the World Cup qualifiers.
If Brescia demonstrates solidity, the Italian system chooses the Leonessa. So it was with the Sanpolino projectwhere they have now arisen – they will be ready at the beginning of 2026 – the indoor arena designed for athletics (next to Gabre Gabric, which has already hosted Italian championships and international meetings) and the Olympic training center for artistic gymnastics. Coni and the government have chosen to invest the Pnrr money here, as well as in Montichiari for the velodrome which will also reopen to the public in January. Only the stadium is missing to complete the mosaic. But it is the most important piece.
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