Estra Pistoia captain Gianluca Della Rosa: “We wanted to prove everyone they were wrong”

Interviewed by Pierluigi Pardo and Matteo Gandini on “DAZN Got Game”, the captain ofExtract Pistoia Gianluca Della Rosa spoke about the origins of the passion for basketball and for the home club: “In the family we are all sportsmen, we like football more and the passion for basketball was passed on to us by our father, even though he wanted football to be played . Since we were children, my brother and I have always watched the games at the stadium in the corner… at the beginning we always went there, then as I grew up every now and then they even called me to the bench and this also made me angry because I wanted to go to the corner to cheer when I wasn’t I was playing (laughs, ed.)…”.

Della Rosa then spoke about a particularity of coach Brienza: “He is certainly a somewhat superstitious coach. Let’s say that when he wins he always does the same things, even in training but now we’ve all become a bit like that, given that we’ve been together as a historic group for three years now with Wheatle, Saccaggi, Del Chiaro…”.

Defeat against Brindisi. “We were in control until the third quarter. Many ups and downs, but the score speaks for itself. Like Pistoia we cannot afford to take 96 points at home. They are rightly in the last resort, they tried to do everything and more to win, they were better than us. Credit to them and many demerits to us too.”

The championship level. “The level has grown a lot, there have been many unpredictable results. Speaking on our behalf, I think that when we don’t play as an underdog as we are used to, we struggle more, perhaps we get more in our heads because we have an advantage and we don’t play with the usual intensity.”

Playoffs close. “We wanted to prove everyone wrong, this was our strength. Not even I expected all this. In a season as newly promoted teams, where the objective was to save ourselves on the last day, we are two points away from the playoffs. We are very happy, We had this little hiccup on Sunday evening.”