Why are the Italian Supercup results so weird?
The only important competitions that started already in Europe are the Italian Supercup and the Polish league. Soon, the Spanish Supercup will join them. After a couple of rounds played in the Italian Cup, everybody is asking what is happening because we all can see many interesting results.
Let’s take an example: Reggio Emilia won against Fortitudo, lost in the overtime against the Eurocup powerhouse Virtus Bologna and then struggling with Vanoli Cremona, that this year won’t be a spectacular squad. Cremona was in summer almost relegating and then in the final minute, they found financial support to continue in Legbabasket Serie A. Who would expect them to be such a tough opponent for Reggio Emilia.
Another surprising result was the win of Fortitudo at Virtus Bologna, after losing the first round to Reggio Emilia. And there are many cases like this in the Italian Supercup this season. Let’s review the main 2 reasons:
- There are 4 groups consisting of 4 teams and only one team will qualify from each group. For many clubs, it was sure from the beginning they won’t reach the Final 4. Every group has a big favourite: Armani Milan, Virtus Bologna, Umana Venezia and Dinamo Sassari. After the first 2 rounds, it was clear they will qualify from the group, so the motivation of playing for all the teams involved could vary a lot any game. For Fortitudo yesterday the motivation was huge, while Virtus Bologna could afford the loss.
- Not all the teams received their foreigners in time, because of Coronavirus. Some of them arrived only a couple of weeks ago, they passed a quarantine period and some of them are yet to come to join their clubs. This situation created a mess because the squads couldn’t train at their full potential. Virtus Roma didn’t use till know their foreigners because they are not focused at all on the Supercup and they don’t want to risk them in this competition.
Image: BasketballCL
