From the press room of the PalaTrieste, coach Jamion Christian presents the next away match against Real Sebastiani Rieti. Match valid for the tenth and final day of the Clock Phase, scheduled for Sunday 21 April at 6:00 pm.
Coach, last match of the scheduled phase to then focus 100% on the playoffs. However, there is one last important step to face, all that is needed is victory. What did he say to the boys? “Incredible how quickly the season went by. This is rhythm in sport, and this is why every game, every practice, every day, every player and every person is vitally important. What we want is to create a positive environment and recover as much physical fitness as possible for the playoff race. The message this week was this: “Take control of your effort, your focus, your attitude, and respond wisely rather than reacting instinctively.” The team that has the best chance to win in the end will be the one that continues to improve, learn and progress. We will face a team like Rieti who have an excellent roster, and we will do our best to compete with them until the end.”
Rieti comes from 3 consecutive victories, placing themselves in third or fourth place will change little for them in view of the playoffs. Do you think it could be an advantage for them to play with less pressure? “There is always pressure in our locker room, we need it to give our best. I don’t think the kids feel external pressure. Our team knows that we can compete with any team in this league. There are seven, eight teams that have a chance of winning this race to the top flight, I know we all believe we are one of those teams. We just want to get there in shape. The pressure gives us the opportunity to improve every day and continue to raise our level of competitiveness against the strongest teams.”
How did the weekly training go? Did he have the full team? “We are trying to fight against this injury problem. We hope to always have a complete and competitive group. This was a great week of training and preparation, some guys were able to get back into the rotation after being out for a while. Every day we get closer and closer to the moment when we will have the full team again. When we get back to that, we’ll be a pretty tough team to play against. The goal is to get the guys who aren’t healthy again, keep the guys who are healthy, and give some freshness to those who gave everything during the season.”
