Brescia with the 1st chance against Fortitudo Bologna
Germani Brescia and Fortitudo Bologna will clash in the last quarterfinal of the Italian Cup on Friday evening. Both of them will give everything on the court, trying to win. Reaching the semifinals of the Cup means a lot for them, especially because these teams don’t have any chance to win the Italian championship this season.
Germani Brescia currently stands in the 3rd place in the Italian Serie A and still has a chance to qualify from their EuroCup Top 16 group. Thus, we can say that coach Vincenzo Esposito did a great job so far this season with his team. The roster is one of the deepest in Italy with Awudu Abass, DeAndre Lansdowne, Ken Horton and Tyler Cain averaging over 10 points per game, while veterans Luca Vitali, Brian Sachetti or David Moss also contribute a lot to the team’s success.
Their opponent tonight is a legendary name in Italy, Fortitudo Bologna. The team that was a force of the European basketball in the 1990s until the mid-2000’s disappeared for a while from the Italian top-tier competition because of financial difficulties, but they managed to climb back last season and now they are trying to reach their glory days. Fortitudo Bologna has experienced players in the roster like Pietro Aradori, Stefano Mancinelli, Martin Leunen, Daniele Cinciarini or Rok Stipcevic and they are doing well in the championship, being in playoff contention with an 11-10 record so far.
Fortitudo Bologna won the Italian Cup back in the 1997-1998 season, but I don’t believe 2020 is the year they will repeat that success. I expect to see a close game, but Germani Brescia has a deeper quality bench and is overall a better team at this moment, so I think Fortitudo will follow their cross-town rivals Virtus back to Bologna tonight.
Photo: Eurocup
Imre Halasz