By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
A mid-level team in Italy which didn’t even had a stable spot in the first division, transformed in a European powerhouse in just few years. To be exact the team started to explode since 2000, when Montepaschi (the more ancient bank in the world and the third biggest in Italy) became Siena’s sponsor.
Under Ferdinando Minucci’s guidance, Mens Sana conquered seven championships (six of them in a row, establishing a historical record), a Saporta Cup and four Euroleague’s Final Four appearance. There are shadows, however, above all this legacy, after Guardia di Finanza (the Italian law enforcement agency, dealing with financial crime) have started investigating the club’s financial transactions 6-7 years ago and specially the ones concerned the foreign players.
The authorities are investigating on the suspicious that they didn’t exactly pay some of the financial transaction taxes. They have already searched 18 homes of the people who were in the middle of these cases, in Siena, Milan, Rimini and Rome. The ongoing investigation has reached to the point that they are looking for all the informations they can get on Ferdinando Minucci’s involvement. No charge has been filed, but to avoid any possible consequences, Minucci left the club’s presidency, on the 29th of December and Cesare Lazzeroni became the new president, while Minucci was appointed GM.
The biggest… headache isn’t the investigation but the upcoming cuts on the budget, as their main sponsor seems to leave the building, next summer, although their contract ends on summer 2014. There is no guarantee that the bank won’t leave earlier and that’s why the club tried from past summer to adjust to the circumstances, by limiting their expenses to 50% than the previous season (this year’s team costs 8 million euros).
All of these have left the team’s work unaffected, as they keep enjoying everything they used to have, when Simone Pianigiani was in the building. The Italian coach left for Fenerbahce‘s money, but Luca Banchi (photo) -for many years Pianigiani’s assistant and for… many people the brains behind Pianigiani -stayed to make his job in the best possible way, moreover given the circumstances. Last week’s victory over Fenerbahce, at Istanbul is considered as his biggest reward, so far.
By the way, the season didn’t start in the best possible way for Banchi, who defended himself, by saying he didn’t have enough time to work with all his players, after many of them were on national teams and after that the team travelled to the US for friendly games. There were many people who got concerned, that “the ideal assistant coach”weren’t going to become an ideal head coach, since he was used on doing everything there was on the map, but he wasn’t the one who was making the final decisions.
Surprise, surprise, his first decision was he was going to change Pianigiani’s philosophy to the bone, on and out of court. He let everybody know that the players were about to take initiatives, to feel free as they were going to decide what would be the best situation for the team and that was a great difference, after Pianigiani was asking for “machines that were able to execute his system” as people who worked with him told us.
Banchi gave to Bobby Brown the keys to the team and despite his not so great start of the season, he continued to trust him. In general, he made sure that his players would feel important and that’s the reason Hackett, Ress and Kangur are playing much better than most of the people were anticipating. And after everything they have so far in Euroleague, it’s only fair to say that you can have the job done with less money, as long… the chef knows the importance of the right ingredients.