From Valencia, Olimpia immediately moved to Pesaro for its Italian league game. It is a very classic game between teams whose destinies intertwines since the 1950s when the best player to ever come out of Pesaro, the great Sandro Riminucci, transferred to Milan to write fantastic pages of Olimpia’s history. Eventually, the teams had a strong rivalry three championship series played one against the other and a semi-final series in the 1980s, plus three Italian Cup finals, the last in 2021, then again in recent times, the 2012 semi-final series and the last season’s quarter-final. It is a game that has been played 175 times in history (Olimpia has won 126 of these games but its 48-37 on the road, in Pesaro).

The moment is crucial for both teams: Pesaro, who won the Milan game early in the season, expressing its best potential, changed coach, bringing Meo Sacchetti back to Serie A; this week they signed forward Willie McDuffie who however will not be available, and looking back to the Milan game they will also have the Lithuanian center Egidijus Mockevicius and the former Olimpia captain, Andrea Cinciarini at the point (he is second all-time for assists with Olimpia behind the immortal Mike D’Antoni). Sharpshooting guard Scott Bamforth, the most consistent Pesaro player with center Leonardo Totè (14.5 points and 5.9 rebounds per game), coming back from an injury, should be able to play somehow. “They changed the coach so we expect them to play an aggressive and emotional game – assistant coach MArio Fioretti predicted – The quality of our job against their pick and roll execution, starting with Cinciarini, Bamforth and Tambone will define our game, along our aggressveness level on Totè”.

For Olimpia the first problem as usual is to regain physical and nervous energy, and focus after a tough game in Valencia in which it showed its best face for 26 minutes and its least beautiful one in the last 14 (in reality not even in all of them because, after the 0-13 run at the end of the third quarter, Olimpia still managed to retake the lead and entered into the last four minutes tied up).

This is the seventh Italian league game faced with just one day’s break in between. On the six previous occasions, the record is 3-3; it is the fifth time that the Italian game is on the road (so far the record is 2-2: wins in Varese and Trento, defeats in Naples and Brescia); and finally it is the third time that both games are played on the road (in the previous two there was a defeat in Naples but a victory in Varese after the big win in Barcelona). Obviously, these types of games increase the risks, even if Olimpia in Serie A games has won five of the last six, climbing up the standings to the fourth place and just two wins shy the top of the table.