In Il Foglio Umberto Zapelloni writes an editorial after Olimpia Milano’s third championship in a row. “[…] The thirty-first, as Captain Melli said, is the championship of awareness. But it is also the championship of regrets for Olimpia who should have played as a team all year round and not just after the early playoff defeat against Trento. Milan celebrates for the third year in a row as it hasn’t done since prehistory, they had to make themselves really beautiful, solid and compact to beat a Virtus who tried to extend their dream until the last drop of energy. In the end, Milan’s victory in Game 1 in Bologna was decisive: it overturned the field factor and everything else. Milan opened with Shields and closed with Mirotic voted best player of the finals. In the end everyone will have understood why Ettore Messina brought him to Milan despite knowing that it would have broken delicate balances and instilled in Nicolò Melli the desire to leave. It would be a shame to lose the captain, the symbolic player, the true face of this team. At the origin of the Armani epic, that team had a brigade made up of three young and extraordinary Italian players, Melli, Gentile and Hackett. Only Gentile remained and it didn’t end well. Losing for the second time Melli would really be the worst way to ruin the Forum’s party”.
“Dominating in Italy is not enough”. Zapelloni continues: “Another characteristic of Olimpia’s transformation in the playoffs was humility. Each victory had a different protagonist, but behind them who took the stage from time to time, there was always the team, the one that was lost in Europe, in the Super League and in the Italian Cup final. Milan doesn’t need revolutions to win in Europe too. Humility might be enough there too. On the pitch, on the bench and in the president’s office. The third championship in a row must become the beginning of a wonderful story.”
: “Losing Melli would be the worst way to ruin the Forum party”){kind=link}