By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
A couple of days after sacking longtime head coach Marco Ramondino, Bertram Derthona Tortona hired Walter De Raffaele as the successor of the 41-year-old tactician.
De Raffaele, 55, will be in charge of the Tortona outfit in the Basketball Champions League Play-In series versus Galatasaray Ekmas. His new side secured homecourt advantage by ranking second in Group H of the Regular Season.
The boss of Umana Reyer Venice for seven years returning to LBA UnipolSai is looking to improve the 5-8 W-L tally in the Regular Season of Italy’s top-tier division.
Per the press release: “Bertram Derthona announces that the agreement has been reached with Walter De Raffaele who, starting today, is the new coach of the first team.
CAREER – Born in Livorno on 31 October 1968, after a career as a player which saw him wear the vests of Enichem Livorno, Marsala (with whom he won the B2 and B1), Desio, Olimpia Pistoia and Petrarca between the XNUMXs and XNUMXs, De Raffaele began his career as a coach as assistant in Montecatini.
From 2000 to 2005 he was part of the Basket Livorno staff, first as an assistant and then, starting from January 2004 as head coach replacing Luca Banchi. He remained at the helm of the Tuscan team until the end of the 2004/05 season.
After a brief experience in Reggio Calabria, from 2006 to 2008 De Raffaele coached Assigeco Casalpusterlengo, playing in the Serie B d’Eccellenza championship, winning the Italian Cup in 2007.
In the 2008/09 season, the new coach of Bertram Derthona replaces Stefano Salieri at the helm of Pavia, a team playing in Serie A2. With the Lombards, in his first season, he achieved qualification for the playoffs, where he was eliminated 3-1 by Soresina who was then promoted to Serie A. He remained in Pavia also in the following season, achieving salvation.
In the summer of 2010 he began his adventure driving the glorious Scaligera Verona, ending his experience in October of the same year. In 2011 he joined the technical staff of Umana Reyer Venezia, a team with which he spent most of his coaching career.
From 2011 to 2016 he held the role of assistant coach: in the first three years he was alongside Andrea Mazzon and Zare Markovski (in the last months of 2013/14), subsequently he was confirmed on Carlo Recalcati’s staff. 2014/15 was a great year for Reyer, who closed the regular Serie A season in second place and qualified for the Scudetto semi-final, losing only in the seventh and decisive match against Reggio Emilia, then finalists.
In the following year, De Raffaele replaced Carlo Recalcati in February and began his great cycle as head coach of Umana Reyer Venezia. From that moment, the new Bertram coach remains in office until February 2023.
In the seven calendar years as head coach, De Raffaele sat on the bench of the Venetian team on over 400 occasions, leading the team to reach goals of the highest level. Two Scudetti (2016/17 and 2018/19), a FIBA Europe Cup (2017/18) won at the end of the final won against Avellino and an Italian Cup (2020). During his years in Laguna he also reached the Super Cup final on two occasions (in 2017 against Milan and in 2019 against Sassari). Now he comes to Bertram Derthona to start a new chapter in his career.”
Photo Credit: EuroleagueBasketball.net