It will be his match, in the sense that he is a former player from Brescia. Pallacanestro Cantù guard Giordano Bortolani played in Brescia in 2020/21, on loan from Olimpia Milano after signing a five-year contract. It was an important season, just a few months after his first call to the national team. And he witnessed the corporate handovers that allowed the Lombard club to lay the foundations for studying as a “grown-up”. And, again in that season, he crossed paths with GM Sandro Santoro, who wanted him as the key man for Cantù’s first season in Serie A after the promotion.
On Sunday at 8pm there will be Cantù-Brescia, a spin: Brescia is at the top with 24 points, tied with Virtus Bologna, Cantù slipped to last place in the last first leg with 6 points, after the defeat in Trieste and the concomitant victory in Reggio Emilia.
However, the guard is one of the most positive players in this streak of eight defeats that Cantù has put together. And the team is showing signs of recovery: «We have performed better recently, especially at home we played well. We must repeat ourselves, have the same approach as in the last matches. Brescia? I expect a strong team, with a lot of experience: they have been playing together for a long time and it shows, it won’t be easy for us.” On the one hand, a completely renewed team, compared to the one that, in the summer, changed little or nothing, beyond the coach who was already in the previous staff: «Certainly the little knowledge we have, but which we are building, is a problem and is common to many newly promoted teams forced to change a lot. Brescia, on the other hand, has the advantage of being a team that knows each other and the results are there to tell the story.”
Clearly, the match presents itself as an insurmountable mountain. But now Cantù needs to seize unexpected victories, against teams that are superior on paper (and not only). Bortolani sees only one way to face the league leaders: «We will see their videos, we will study them in depth. But, beyond the various tactics we will adopt, we must not lack the aggressiveness and sense of urgency that there must be, considering our position in the standings.”
And to say that Cantù, both against Tortona and against Trieste, also had important balls to end both matches in his favour: «Perhaps if we look at the last matches, we are actually missing the final blaze. Before, the problem was getting into the game, now we’ve ironed out this thing, probably all we need is this further “step”. But we cannot think of always finishing 4-5 points down in the key moments of the matches, it would also be desirable to be above and learn to manage the accumulated advantages.”
A hand to restore order, in this sense, can be given by the newcomer Chris Chiozza, the new American point guard: «He’s fitting in. It’s not easy to get on the run, but he did well both in the match and in training. He is altruistic on the parquet, he can certainly help us with Green. I could benefit from it too, of course. He also has points in his hands, now we have what it takes to change things.”
However, despite some stumbles in recent times, Brescia remains a team and, above all, a club in great growth. A constant growth that took them straight to the championship finals last season, which they lost against Virtus Bologna: «I was in Brescia – says Bortolani – in the last year of a chapter that was about to close, the real leap forward began the following year. Mine was an expert team, but at the end of a journey.”
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