After the championship won in 2022, before sending the team on vacation, Coach Ettore Messina, in the locker room, when it was clear that he would finish his career back at Real Madrid, said that “at Olimpia Milano there had been an era before Chacho Rodriguez and an Olimpia after Chacho Rodriguez”. Beyond the wins, the great performances – many -, the deep relationship with the Milan fanbase, this was Sergio Rodriguez. The man of credibility, a 100 percent professional who played his role with the spirit of an unproven rookie. This was Rodriguez. Next to him it was impossible not to feel his passion for the game, the joy with which he played. And Chacho was a locker room man too: as a leader he could say something to anybody without hurting their feelings. And at the same time, he could ease the tension with a one-liner or a smile, perhaps a joke.

“Ready Giovanni? This is Chacho. We’re on the bus, why aren’t you here? Come on, quick, we are leaving.” On the other end of the phone was Giovanni Tam, a kid from the Olimpia youth team who was practicing with the senior team. It was the first road game of the preseason. Tam hadn’t been summoned, he wasn’t supposed to come, no one was waiting for him. But Chacho had decided to scare him a little bit!

Chacho Rodriguez came to Olimpia from Moscow where he had just won the Final Four for the second time in his career, and he was a big factor in the win. What he brought to Milan was credibility, but not only that. He brought to Milan the strength to believe, the strength to raise the aspirations. The strength to beat Real Madrid, to win in Tel Aviv. To win in Moscow, to dominate in Istanbul, to play in the Final Four and to try to win it all. He didn’t do it alone. Among his teammates he had Malcom Delaney, Kevin Punter, Vlado Micov, Gigi Datome, Nicolò Melli, Kyle Hines, Shavon Shields. But Chacho, with his personality, his charisma, immediately became some kind of a franchise player. The face of an era.

“I have played against many great players, sometimes well, sometimes very well, sometimes badly, as can always happen. But there are two players, two players who to me are like kryptonite to Superman. Against them there is no reason to play bad very time, and yet it happens. They are Lukas Lekavicius and John Di Bartolomeo”.

“I worked out with several NBA teams. On the court, in Boston, I found myself playing all-out against some American guards, all of them fast, athletic, great runners. After five minutes, I was no longer able to keep up with anyone. Then it was time for the interview, where they could ask you everything. I didn’t speak English well; in fact, I didn’t speak it at all. They asked me things and I answered without knowing what they had asked me. In fact, my pre-draft was a disaster.” Not entirely, if the kid with a shaved head, who declared himself ready two years ahead of schedule, was chosen in the first round by Portland. And then he also played in Sacramento and New York, with Mike D’Antoni on the bench. And finally, he returned for one last tour in Philadelphia. The Sixers were in rebuilding mode, but he wasn’t there in their record-setting season for games lost. Don’t try to tell him, he is a proud guy. The negative record was achieved the year before his stay in Philly.

“I never sported a beard until one summer, on holiday, after the London Olympics, I noticed a lot of bearded man and then as a joke I let it grow. From that moment on, I never cut it.” It has become a kind of identity card, a personal trademark. Like number 13: “I had to leave it in Philadelphia because it had been retired.” In honor of Wilt Chamberlain, the man who scored 100 points in a game.

During the golden years of the great Real, Sergio was named EuroLeague’s MVP despite coming off the bench, routinely. Pablo Laso used him with the second unit. Dimitris Itoudis continued in Moscow and so did Ettore Messina in Milan, most of the time. Why did a player like Chacho come off the bench? Because beyond any technical or tactical explanation lies the reality: because Chacho could do it without feeling diminished. Because for him the “starting five” never mattered as much as the “closing five”, the lineup that finishes the games, not the one that starts them. Chacho was a champion because he always put the team before everything, winning was his only goal, and he did it while having fun and making people have fun watching him play. With his creativity, the passes behind the head, the dribbles between the legs, the step-backs. He was the European version of Jason Williams, the imaginative point guard who played in Sacramento and won a NBA championship in Miami, and basically invented the elbow pass.

“I’m from Tenerife. There everyone supports Real Madrid or Barcelona. I had chosen Real Madrid since I was a child.” His real career began first in Bilbao and then at Estudiantes, but after the NBA seasons he was happy to build his own legacy at Real Madrid. And finishing his career in Madrid was like completing a circle. He closed it out by winning the 2023 EuroLeague. He could have been the MVP of that victory.

In Madrid, they coined a term that identified Rodriguez’s years with the white jersey. “Chachismo”. It could be adapted to the Milan years. What was Chachismo? Winning a game brilliantly, spectacularly, but still winning it. Accepting a mistake, because it won’t happen again. Trusting the “process” as they said in Philadelphia right during the time in which he also played there. Trusting Chachismo led to the beautiful 2022 championship, to the two Italian Cups won by dominating, to the Final Four in Cologne which would not have remained one “solo” trip if the following year a team that finished third in the regular season had not faced, decimated, the defending champions of Efes in the playoffs. Players like Rodriguez are usually many things but are rarely cataloged as courageous, stoic. Chacho was. Behind the behind-the-back passes, the three-point shots, there was a street fighter and, if necessary, a “trash talker”. He went to play in Istanbul Games 3 and 4 on a swollen ankle. There was no Nik Melli, there was no Malcolm Delaney, the team had lost Dinos Mitoglou along the way and Gigi Datome only played the fourth game of the series. Rodriguez had decided that he would be there. He almost managed the miracle of bringing the series back to Milan.

“We’ve already done it, let’s do it again,” he said on the afternoon of Game 4 in Istanbul. When he gathered the whole team in the meeting room, showing a video that he had personally prepared to show his teammates everything they had been able to do while overcoming all types of difficulties, injuries (Shields’ broken hand, three months out was one), obstacles to get there, that day. A leader, on and off the court.

Probably the biggest regret for Chacho was precisely this: not having returned to the Final Four with Olimpia, not having won the EuroLeague with Olimpia as he did with Real Madrid, twice, and CSKA Moscow. However, the defeat in Istanbul probably sailed the eventual championship run. The previous year, Olimpia had led an extraordinary season, which began by dominating the Super Cup, continued by dominating the Italian Cup, the regular season and reaching the Final Four. That season had only one week left, the last one, the one that cost the championship. A year later, Chacho was among the protagonists of the victory that corrected an anomaly. With that memorable Game 6, with two legacy plays, the no-look pass for Kyle Hines’ dunk and the triple from ten meters, Chacho had the opportunity, the perfect end, to leave Milan without really leaving it.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” On Instagram, Mario Hezonja was amazed at describing his feelings after Rodriguez’s first time in Milan, as an opponent. He was referring to the welcome, which exuded esteem, respect, love, and an indestructible bond between the city and its hero. Reciprocated: the first time Olimpia returned to Madrid, Chacho invited all his former teammates and all the staff to his house for an after dinner. And the second time, he stopped by the hotel to greet everyone once more. A champion of style is a champion forever.

Chacho played for three years in Milan. In today’s basketball terms, it is a big but not huge number. Three years represent a hundred appearances in the EuroLeague, the same number in the domestic league. Yet, three years were enough to make him go down in history, in the Mount Rushmore of the most beloved champions, at least for a generation of fans. Rodriguez is to the current Olimpia fans what Arthur Kenney was to the fans of the 70s, what D’Antoni, Premier and Meneghin were to those of the 80s. It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of how the time available was lived and used. When he came in 2019, he was a mature man, 33 years old, with a wife who loves with Italy and two beautiful blonde little girls. In Milan, the third child was born; the fourth was born in Madrid. You look into Chacho’s eyes and read the serenity of a champion and of a happy man. Chacho retired a few months ago. For someone who has played basketball all his life, it’s not an easy transition. It is easier if you are aware that you have never betrayed the values ​​of the game; if you have a wonderful family; and you know that the people, your people, in Madrid, in Milan, everywhere, have understood who you are.