By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
With Milan losing by 29 points at home to Efes, coach Ettore Messina said in the press conference after the game of the possibility of him stepping down from his position is on the table, if that’s the way to wake up the team.
As Messina admitted: “This game made us think we moved backward two years and a half when we were 13th in the EuroLeague standings. The squad has always played with the character and the attitude that Olimpia Milano deserves. Obviously, I’m responsible for this. If the team plays heartlessly, I feel responsible for having created a group that for whatever reason can’t click together. The only thing I think I’ll do now is to try to restore it, both in the Italian league and in the second part of the season in the EuroLeague. If we’ll keep playing like this, I’ll go to mr. Armani to say they’d need somebody else to lead this project”.
Messina is not only the coach but also the president of the club and it has been long rumored that at some point he might step down from coaching and keep solely the responsibility of the president.
However, nobody expected this to happen mid-season with Messina as a coach still trying to restore Milan to its old glory.
However, Messina opened the discussion himself, while established EuroLeague coaches like Pablo Laso and Giannis Sfairopoulos are available in the market. And it’s not a secret that the easiest way to jumpstart a team in Europe is to change the coach.