The most awaited derby in Bologna: after 10 years, Virtus facing Fortitudo
Legabasket presents its Christmas gift for every basketball fans: the derby between Virtus Bologna and Fortitudo Bologna, two teams with huge histories behind, two teams that share the same arena and two teams that have huge expectations from seasons to come. They always fight for City’s supremacy and now they aim to have a long run in this year’s competitions. Let’s see what the last results for both sides were.
Virtus started the season perfectly winning every game in Legabasket until the last rounds. They lost two out of three last Seria A games and now they must win this game to regain some good spirit through the team and beat their arch-rivals. Last round they faced Dinamo Sassari in another interesting derby of Seria A. The match was almost without history because Sassari took the lead after the first minute and then didn’t had any doubts about the winner of the game, maybe only once at the beginning of third quarter when Virtus managed to tie the score at 43. Virtus was outscored in almost every stats of the game, ‘’winning’’ only in assists stats were they had one more but had 15 turnovers in the game which allowed Sassari to have more field-attempts and the final score was 91-77 for hosts. The main contributors for Virtus were: Milos Teodosic (22 points and 10 assists), Filippo Baldi Rossi (12 points and 10 rebounds) and Kyle Weems (11 points and 6 rebounds).
This season is one of continuous development for Fortitudo in order to prepare for the next seasons and bigger expectations. Since the returning in the first tier of Italian Basketball, they win 8 games and lost 5 which allow them to be in 6th position with the same record with 4th and 5th. They want to reach the play-offs and if they continue to play like they did until now, that won’t be a problem. In the last game, they received the visit of Happy Casa Brindisi in another tough match for them. In the end, they were victorious with a 78-72 score, thanks to a very good defense that allowed Brindisi to score 36% of their attempts. Henry Sims was the MVP of the game after he finished with 17 points, 17 rebounds and 5 assists. Kassius Robertson (15 points and 3 rebounds) and Maarten Leunen (14 points and 8 rebounds) also had big contributions.
I’m sure that Fortitudo are very highly motivated before this game and surely wants to make a surprise and win against Virtus, but I don’t think they can do that because Virtus’s roster is stronger. For Pietro Aradori, now a Fortitudo player this encounter will have a special meaning after winning BasketballCL trophy last season with Virtus Bologna.
Photo: https://www.facebook.com/Fortitudo-Pallacanestro-Bologna
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
