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A kiss to Giannis, a moving speech and a sensational victory: Potzko conquers Europe - voila! sport

2022-09-12T09:38:09.849Z


As a player he "behaved like an idiot", as a coach he is just as colorful, and now, after the expulsion, the crying on the lines, the jump on Janis and the amazing victory over Serbia, the whole continent is talking about him


A kiss to Giannis, a moving speech and a sensational victory: Potzko conquers Europe

As a player he "behaved like an idiot", as a coach he is no less colorful, and now, after the expulsion, the crying on the lines, the jump on Janis and the amazing victory over Serbia, the whole continent is talking about him.

"This is the greatest victory in the history of Italy," he said.

His players explained the secret of the magic: "For us he is like another player"

Voila system!

sport

12/09/2022

Monday, September 12, 2022, 12:17 Updated: 12:27

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Summary clip of the day in sport, 12.9 (Sport1)

With all due respect to Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the greatest individual performances in Eurobasket came last night (Sunday) precisely from a coach - coach of the Italian national team Gianmarco Futsco.



On the face of it, the task of the Italians in the round of 16 was almost impossible - to overcome perhaps the best player in the world Nikola Jokic and the Serbian national team.

One of the favorites for the gold opened an 11-point advantage in the first quarter, in the second it grew to 14 and in the third, when Italy dropped to 61:57, it lost its coach who was sent off for a second technical foul.

Just then, the momentum changed sides - Azori opened the decisive quarter with a 2:16 run and flew to a real sensation - 86:94.



After the game, the colorful Potzko provided perhaps the biggest moment of the tournament so far, when he ran down the corridor on the way to the dressing room, screaming with joy, and when he saw Yannis Antetokounmpo on his way to the floor for Greece's round of 16, he jumped on the Greek Freak and kissed him.

"I love you Yanis," he told him. "He's such a nice guy," said the excited coach.

"I jumped on him, I kissed him, he really is a very nice guy."

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When he was taken off in the middle of the third quarter, he was blown away with tears in his eyes.

He hugged his players and went to comfort himself in the arms of his good friend Frederic Danilovic, now the president of the Serbian Basketball Association.

"I love my players," said the Italian coach.

"When I left the game I cried, I went to cry on Saša Danilović's shoulder, he is my brother, and I didn't say a word. I told my players, 'Don't worry, guys. You are also fighting on the bench and I like that'. I didn't want them to worry."

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And they did not care.

Two days before the match, when Italy's date with Serbia in the round of 16 was set, Potzko said: "Serbia is a formidable team, but with this group of players of mine, we are ready for anything."

Last summer, with Romeo Sacetti on the lines, the Rossoneri knocked out the Serbs in the pre-Olympic tournament, but then the opponent was without Nikola Jokic.

This time it is a team that ran over all of its opponents in the group stage, and seemed almost invulnerable.



"Gianmarco's layoff touched us," said Marco Speiso, who scored 19 of his 22 points in the final 20 minutes.

"He told us, 'Win for me.' We went out together and did exactly that, because he deserves it."

Achila Polunara agreed: "When he left the floor we got a lot of energy, and we knew we had to win for him. He's already a teammate for us. He's a coach, but he's like a teammate."

"We financed the world," said Potzko after the huge victory.

"It may have been the biggest game in the history of Italian basketball, the first was when I played with the team in the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament in 2004 and we beat Lithuania. But this is a bigger game, because we played with heart. I have never seen a player like Jokic."

Also, at the end of the game, Potzko joked that he would give his credit card to his players: "They can do whatever they want with it."



Eduardo Casalone, Futsco's assistant who stepped into his shoes with the suspension, explained how important the head coach is to his players: "He is unbelievable, because he has an amazing connection with the players. They play for him. No one can be like him."

Potzko got the job about three and a half months ago.

In 2012 he started his coaching career, after a wonderful playing career - also as a player, he was very colorful:

"I suffered a lot to get this shirt," he said, on the verge of tears, when he was introduced to the Italian team.

A little earlier even as a candidate for Hapoel Holon, after it fired Maurizio Buscaglia, but in the end it was Guy Guedes who got the appointment.

In recent years, Bissek has established his position as one of the most fascinating coaches in the Jewish state, after he led Cesari to win the Italian championship.

By the way, this is how he looked after a loss to Nimburk:


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"I played basketball for more than 30 years, and I was the idiot trying to turn on the crowd and do stupid things," he told the Italian media a few weeks ago.

"I know I may have looked stupid. Sometimes I made mistakes and I will continue to make mistakes for the rest of my life, because that's who I am."

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Italy, which lost its big star Danilo Gallinari just before the tournament, will hope to continue its surprising journey when it meets France in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

With Pozko on the lines, apparently anything is possible.

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Source: walla

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