It doesn’t happen to everyone to arrive at a young age in the most successful basketball team in Italy and to quickly become one of the prized pieces of the youth team. It is the story of Francesco Torneseborn in 2009, from Lecce, power forward-center of the Under 15 teamOlympia Milan. Starting from Salento at the age of 13 with the dream of playing in the top Italian basketball championship, the fifteen-year-old basketball player from Lecce is making his way at youth level both with the club team and with the various national teams. Francesco is part of the Under 15 team, the selection of his category, and in recent months he has also been called up to the Under 16 team, demonstrating the great interest with which the Azzurri coaches follow him step by step, in every stage of his career. short career.
A few days ago he won the Olimpia jersey at the International 23rd April Basketball Festival in Istanbul, a very ambitious and prestigious competition. For Tornese, author in the final col Fenerbahce of 20 points and 17 rebounds, the satisfaction was triple because in addition to winning with the team he was included in the first quintet of the tournament and in addition he was elected MVP of the final. «I lived one of the best days of my life – he confides on the phone from the Olimpia guesthouse, which has hosted him for two years now together with the other boys from the youth sector of the Lombard association -. I’m living a beautiful dream and I don’t intend to give up an inch. Society welcomed me like a son, putting me in a position to grow as a man and as an athlete. I have everything I need to feel good in a metropolis like Milan and for this reason I am working hard, I want to repay those who put their trust in me.”
Olimpia Milano is the top not only at first team level but also when it comes to the cantera. Michele’s arrival two years ago Catalans, former Siena and B’s best coach, demonstrates the club’s attention to its youth team. The technical manager of the youth sector works hard every day with the aim of training young talents to deliver to the First Team. The technician ofUnder 15 but it’s Stefano Bertoli, of whose Tornese team he is a pillar. «I get on very well with the technical staff, I use every training session to try to improve – says Francesco, whose day in Milan is very intense -. I get up at 6 in the morning, then at 7 I take the metro to go to school where I arrive around 8. Thanks to my company I am enrolled in a private sports high school and I can also count on the support of a tutor who follows me in everything and for all. Especially on difficult days when I was able to study little due to training or matches, his presence by my side is fundamental. I return to the guesthouse after 2pm, have lunch with my mates and then rush to the gym for the afternoon training which lasts two hours, sometimes even half an hour more. The club provides us with everything we need to work at our best, both in terms of organization, attention and structures. In this I think Milan is at the top.”
Tomorrow Francesco will respond to the new call of coach Alessandro Nocera’s Under 15 team while he cherishes the dream of being part of the Under 16 team which will participate in the European Championships in Heraklion, Greece in August. «But I know that first I have to do well with the club and with the Under 15s», underlines Tornese who gets excited when we take him back in time to the days of his first club team, the New Basketball Lecce. «I remember them all with great affection, from coach Gigi Marra to Roberta Dull, to all my teammates with whom I can see each other with enormous pleasure. Few people know it but basketball entered my life almost by chance. I was 9 years old, it was July 29th and I had been invited to the birthday party of “Lollo”, my best friend at the time. When we arrived at the cutting of the cake, I started talking to a gentleman I didn’t know and at a certain point he asked me: “would you like to come and play basketball from the end of August? Come on, come and give it a try.” I answered yes amidst the doubts of my father Antonio (Salento entrepreneur with activities abroad with an important past in the Lecce radio environment, ed.). Up until that point I had practiced swimming and football. I didn’t yet know that that date, the invitation and the meeting with that gentleman, “Coach Gigi”, and therefore the “meeting” with basketball, would change my life.”
And there is another tasty backstory regarding Francesco. «I was about to go to Stella Azzurra Rome which is among the most important companies in training talents of an international level. I was already mentally ready to leave for the capital when, on 14 April 2022, Roberta Scialpi told me: “Ciccio, Olimpia Milano also wants you”. In that moment everything changed. A few days later, on April 29th, I set foot at the Assago Forum for the first time with a lump in my throat, with a mixture of anxiety and curiosity, but I had a phrase from my father in mind: “be calm and have fun”. From that moment my wonderful experience began with the most successful club in Italy and with which I hope one day to make my debut in the Euroleague.”
(Liberato Casole collaborated)
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© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Tags: Lecce Olimpia Milano tale young Tornese
