The moment can be fleeting. Like choices, which can change in a short time, thanks to a market and a reality that often goes beyond what is desired or gives them another form. “Captain, my captain,” the boys at Weston boarding school said to Professor Keating in the film The fleeting moment. “Captain, my captain” the fans have been saying for a few months Dinamo Sassari and the companions of Stefano Gentile. A cry that was transformed, as in the film, into a farewell, but with less moving contours and made more fleeting by doubts.
Reality
Professional sport also foresees these scenarios. Professionals make choices that are sometimes incomprehensible to most people. They have to look beyond the ford of the river called the present, they have to deal with what they put in their pocket and what they would like to do next. But also with their own ego, because without it they would not have taken steps in a world in which without a certain amount of cheek you cannot get very far. In Gentile’s choice of leave Dinamo Sassari and arrive at Trapani There seems to be a bit of everything. There is the desire to get back into the game of a player who has shown in his career that he can have an impact, who believes in himself and who, despite his identity card starting to fade, wants to have a leading role on his shoulders hero. What Dinamo evidently could no longer do guarantee as happened in the past, thanks to Markovic’s latest decisions on the pitch. On the other hand there is an economic question which will satisfy above all the player but also the Bank, because the contract with Sassari was valid until 2025 and a buyout it should be necessary to free Maddaloni’s native guard. It seems like the prelude to a peaceful handshake, there decision wise of a couple who decides to let go because they loved each other, but now they feel the need for something different. But like all choices, goodbye has a important specific weightabove all because it is that of the player that Dinamo had chosen to embody its virtues.
Question marks
Making comparisons with Vanuzzo or Devecchi, to name the last two captains, is useless. Different type of players, different type of career and moment of the Bank, different type of personality. Although there is no armband in basketball, the separation goes against the trend with the importance given to the figure of the captain in the white and blue team. Even more so if you consider the moment when the separation arrives. Dinamo is in the midst of the fight playoffs and it will still be after the match against Brindisi, whatever happens at PalaPentassuglia, the last one in which Gentile should wear the Sassari vest before the goodbyes that will arrive after Easter. Just in time to beat the countdown for the A2 market, which closes to new memberships on April 5th. There will therefore not even be a greeting to their fans at the PalaSerradimigni for what had been the player chosen long ago to carry forward a sort of legacy internal to the company. And not even the time to try to lead my comrades, with example and experience, towards a goal that only a short time ago seemed difficult could actually be reached like that of the playoffs and which we now look at with ambition. Gentile’s departure thus seems to become a snapshot of a season that will remain, whatever happens complex. And on which the company will be called to reflect in order to grow further. For strengthen above all that bond with the fundamental place and which instead, given the difficulties experienced, this season seemed to falter before the team found a psychological and playing balance. With Gentile goes the other part of those who had been the first two pieces of the year, the two key figures, coach Bucchi and indeed the future player of Trapani. The destinies they can always change, especially when it comes to coaches and the decision to make a different choice on the bench was not easy. Then it was a decision in which the courage and the needs mixed, with a bet called Markovic which has paid off so far. After finding the right solution, the separation with Gentile leaves more questions. Dinamo probably couldn’t have done differently, both for the offer received but above all because it is better to have a united dressing room, rather than a component, even if considered fundamental, unhappy or possible prey to possible remorse. But at the moment the consequences will be more restricted rotations, barring surprises on market choices which seem difficult given the situation of foreigners, at a juncture of the season in which the difficulties will once again surface and can only be overcome by stimuli. There will be greater responsibilities for Cappelletti, with Pisano ready to pick up a few minutes if necessary. But the knockback it will still have to be evaluated, with little time available to adapt. Thus, the only impression that could turn into security, at the moment, is that the future will be once again everything to write all over again or almost. It will be another summer for Dinamo in which there will be no shortage of transformations, with the only certainty being that at the moment his name is Nenad Markovic. A trend that is not surprising in professional sport, much less in basketball, but which perhaps at this point in the season at Dinamo was less expected than other times.
Matteo Cardia
