Not just another day at the office for CSKA coach Ettore Messina
By Vered Cohen
MADRID - It might have been CSKA Moscow coach Ettore Messina's easiest European title - the fourth in his career, placing him in the same category as some of the best coaches ever on the Continent (Pedro Ferrandiz, Bozidar Maljkovic and Alexander Gomelski) and two titles away from Serbian Zelimir Obradovic. The Italian maestro was delayed more than an hour due to a press conference in which he patiently answered questions from his native country's journalists. He does not appear exhausted nor especially excited. It is as if the Euroleague final is just another day at the office and the result was pre-determined: They did what they had to do to finish up and go home.
But it really was not like that. Messina says that this past season was especially difficult from a morale perspective. His brother died of cancer, his youngest son is sick and weak and he faced non-stop pressure from his family to come home - or choose a place of work closer to Italy than the giant city of Moscow that is clogged with traffic and some of the worst air pollution in all of Europe. Over the last few months, all of Europe has been buzzing about Messina's expected move to Barcelona. According to CSKA's CEO, Andrei Vatutin, "We supported the rumors about [David] Blatt and others, in order not to interfere with the negotiations with Messina, even though offers came flowing in to us, including from the U.S." And still, according to a writer for Catalonian newspaper El Mundo Deportivo, Jesus Perez Ramos, Messina was closing to landing in Barcelona for next season.
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What went wrong? The Italian coach demanded the right to determine himself the hierarchy in the system and replace the CEO of the basketball team, Zoran Savic, and to respond to him before the Final Four regarding his two candidates for the CEO position. They are claiming at Barcelona that the club's president, Joan Laporta, who has invested heavily in Frank Rijkaard and Ronaldinho on the soccer side, simply does not have the time or the desire to get involved. Either because of this or another reason - as it also became clear that Savic's days at Barcelona were numbered - Messina did not get all of the assurances regarding the technical structure or the club's hierarchy, and decided to pass. The day before the Euroleague final, he extended his contract with CSKA for another season with option for a further year.
"Throughout my entire career, I have never met a group of people who are so honest and friendly as they are at CSKA," Messina told Haaretz. "They know that I wanted to be closer to my family in light of recent unfortunate events. They did not pressure me; they were understanding when I had to get on a plane to Italy right after every Euroleague or Russian league game and when I arrived at the arena a half-hour before an away game. CSKA gave me the option to choose, and the fact that they signed me a day before the final indicates how great their thinking is: Not to be presured, but to express full faith that the result in the final would be be what it would be. Very few would have done that, and even if there were other considerations about the future, I couldn't refuse the club that a long time ago became my second family."
After Sunday night's final, Messina the gentleman made a concerted effort to compliment the Israeli champion. "As far as I was concerned, the final against Zvika Sherf was very difficult from a tactical point of view," he said. "I know that Zvika prepared his teams well for game and again this time we did solve the problem of [Esteban] Batista in the first half, even though we knew that he would go to the basket from the left side, and we definitely did not take advantage of Maccabi's problem with [Nikola] Vujcic in the first 20 minutes. It appears that the injury is still bothering him.
"The final point spread is not real; we simply improved our defense in the third quarter and the scoring run at the beginning of the fourth quarter was decisive. I definitely thought that Maccabi was a worthy opponent with a great tradition, and I would have recommended not to forget that only two teams reach the Euroleague final. This is how Maccabi's temperamental European season in any case came to a successful conclusion."
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