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Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano

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Arena Capacity
  
12,331

President
  
Livio Proli

Arena/Stadium
  
Mediolanum Forum

Location
  
Milan, Italy

Founded
  
1936

Team colors
  
White and Red

Team captain
  
Andrea Cinciarini

Head coach
  
Jasmin Repeša

Owner
  
Giorgio Armani

Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenffbOli

Nickname
  
Scarpette Rosse Little Red Shoes

History
  
Dopolavoro Borletti (1930-1947) Triestina Milano (1936-1947) Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano (1947-present)

Leagues
  
Lega Basket Serie A, EuroLeague

Profiles

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Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano, also known as EA7 Emporio Armani Milano after its title sponsor (alternative names: Pallacanestro Olimpia Milan, EA7 Emporio Armani Milan), is an LBA Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy. Its colors are red and white, and the team is sometimes referred as "Scarpette Rosse" (Little Red Shoes) because team officials imported red Converse All-Star shoes for players from the United States. The tag line stuck, and the nickname is still used by many fans today.

Contents

As per custom in the Italian league, sponsorship has kept the team name changing frequently. From 1936 until 1955, it was called Borletti Milano. From 1956 to 1973, it was renamed Simmenthal. Other famous sponsorship names were Billy, Simac, Tracer, and Philips, in the 1980s. For past club sponsorship names, see the list below.

Olimpia is the most titled basketball club in Italy, having won 27 Italian League championships, 6 Italian National Cups, 1 Italian Super Cup, 3 EuroLeague, 1 FIBA Intercontinental Cup, 3 FIBA Saporta Cups, 2 FIBA Korać Cups and many junior titles.

History

Olimpia was founded in 1936, by Milan businessman Adolfo Bogoncelli. The team regularly won the LEGA Basket Serie A championship of Italian basketball in the 1950s and the 1960s, with players including Nane Vianello, Sandro Riminucci, Gianfranco Pieri, and Bill Bradley. In the 1970s, three teams were fighting across Europe for supremacy: Olimpia Milano, Ignis Varese, and Real Madrid. Pallacanestro Varese and Olimpia Milano were arch-rivals, as the two cities are 25 miles (40 km) apart. While Milano was a frequent Italian League champion, they were unable to win the prestigious European Champions Cup.

Late in the 1970s, the quality of the club declined, but Olimpia Milano still managed to win a Cup Winner's Cup. In the second half of the 1970s, the team signed several good players, including the Boselli twins (Franco and Dino), Mike Sylvester, Dino Meneghin, Mike D'Antoni, John Gianelli, Roberto Premier. Bob McAdoo, Joe Barry Carroll, Russ Schoene, Antoine Carr, and Mike Brown. American head coach Dan Peterson led the team back to prominence.

In the 1980s, the team was sold to the Gabetti family. During this time, they qualified for nine Serie A championships finals, winning five, with the 1987 team winning the Serie A title, the European Championship (won also in 1988: both finals were won against Maccabi Elite), the Italian Cup and the 1987 Intercontinental Cup. This gave the club the coveted "Triple Crown" and the even rarer "Quadruple Crown".

Led by point guard Sasha Djordjević, the team won another Korać Cup in 1993. Bepi Stefanel purchased the team franchise in 1994, and signed-up notable European players like Dejan Bodiroga, Gregor Fučka, Sandro De Pol, and Nando Gentile. In 1996, the team won the Italian Cup and its 25th Italian National Championship, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the club.

Team management has been inconsistent as ownership groups from 1998 to 2004; team have included Warren Kidd, Hugo Sconochini, Claudio Coldebella and Petar Naumoski. In 2005, owner Corbelli, which bought the club in 2002, from Sergio Tacchini, was flanked by Adriano Galliani (Managing Director of Italian Football club A.C. Milan), Massimo Moratti (President of rival club Internazionale), NBA star Kobe Bryant, and stylist Giorgio Armani, as sponsor with the Armani Jeans brand. After difficult years, led by coach Lino Lardo, Olimpia reached the national championship Finals, finally being beaten by Fortitudo Bologna.

On January 25, 2006, in the midst of a disappointing season in the EuroLeague and domestically, Djordjevic was named as the team's new coach. He left as coach after the 2006–07 season, but not before securing Olimpia a berth in the 2007–08 Euroleague. In 2008, Giorgio Armani bought the team from Giorgio Corbelli, standing as the only owner, entirely changing the management structure, naming Livio Proli as President and Lucio Zanca as general manager. Piero Bucchi was chosen to coach the new team, leading Olimpia twice to second place in LEGA Basket, being defeated by Montepaschi Siena in both cases.

On January 2011, after 23 years, glorious coach Dan Peterson came back from retirement to replace Piero Bucchi as head coach. However, his stint at Olimpia Milano this time was quite short: after failing to reach the championship Finals, on June 9, Olimpia Milano announced Sergio Scariolo as new head coach for the 2011–12 season. The first player signed for the 2011–12 season was Omar Cook, an American-born play maker, who had played the previous season with Power Electronics Valencia. Due to the NBA lockout, Danilo Gallinari went back to his Alma Mater, playing 15 games (8 in the Italian League, 7 in EuroLeague): he left the team in December. Sergio Scariolo was replaced by Luca Banchi at the beginning of the 2013–14 season, and the team brought from Montepaschi Siena: David Moss, Kristjan Kangur, and Daniel Hackett.

The team reached the quarterfinals of EuroLeague, 16 years after its last appearance, but the team lost against the eventual league champions, Maccabi Electra. The team finished in the 1st position the LEGA Basket regular season, and in the 7th game of the playoff's finals, Olimpia won its 26th Italian League championship title, its first after 18 years. Alessandro Gentile, the captain of Olimpia, was named MVP of the finals.

Arenas

Olimpia Milano used the OND Borletti outdoor court for almost 20 years in Via Costanza. In the mid-1940s, they moved to the PalaFiera Milano, which had a seating capacity of 18,000 people, and was then the largest indoor sports arena in Europe, and second only to the Madison Square Garden in New York. At the end of the 1960s, the PalaFiera was abandoned, and Olimpia moved into the original structure of the PalaLido, which then had a smaller seating capacity of 3,500, but because of lack of security measures at the time, often was filled with up to 10,000 people.

At the end of the 1970s, Olympia moved into the newly built Palasport di San Siro, a multi-purpose facility built next to the Meazza Stadium, that was able to hold about 18,000 spectators. In 1985, Olimpia returned to PalaLido. They then moved to the 8,500 seat PalaTrussardi, where they played through the early 1990s.

The club then moved into its current home arena, the Mediolanum Forum, which has a seating capacity of 12,331. The club has also played some home games at the 6,700 seat PalaDesio. Recently, the club considered moving back to the newly rebuilt and modernized PalaLido, after it was remodeled, and had its seating capacity expanded. However, the club ultimately decided to continue using the Mediolanum Forum as its home arena, due to its much larger seating capacity, as compared to PalaLido.

Domestic competitions

Italian League

  • Winners (27): 1935–36, 1936–37, 1937–38, 1938–39, 1949–50, 1950–51, 1951–52, 1952–53, 1953–54, 1954–57, 1957–58, 1958–59, 1959–60, 1961–62, 1962–63, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67, 1971–72, 1981–82, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1988–89, 1995–96, 2013–14, 2015–16

    • Italian Cup

  • Winners (6): 1971–72, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1995–96, 2015–16, 2016–17

    • Italian Super Cup

  • Winners (1): 2016

    • European competitions

    EuroLeague

  • Winners (3): 1965–66, 1986–87, 1987–88
  • Runners-up (2): 1966–67, 1982–83
  • Final Four (4): 1966, 1967, 1988, 1992

    • FIBA Saporta Cup

  • Winners (3): 1970–71, 1971–72, 1975–76
  • Runners-up (2): 1983–84, 1997–98

    • FIBA Korać Cup

  • Winners (2): 1984–85, 1992–93
  • Runners-up (2): 1994–95, 1995–96

    • Worldwide competitions

    FIBA Intercontinental Cup

  • Winners (1): 1987

    • Unofficial

    Triple Crown

  • Winners (1): 1986–87

    • Small Triple Crown

  • Winners (1): 1971–72

    • Sponsorship names

    Through the years, due to sponsorship deals, it has been also known as:

  • Borletti (1936–1955)
  • Simmenthal (1955–1973)
  • Innocenti (1973–1975)
  • Cinzano (1975–1978)
  • Billy (1978–1983)
  • Simac (1983–1986)
  • Tracer (1986–1988)
  • Philips (1988–1993)
  • Recoaro (1993–94)
  • Stefanel (1994–1998)
  • Sony (1998–99)
  • Adecco (1999–2002)
  • Pippo (2002–03)
  • Breil (2003–04)
  • Armani Jeans (2004–2011)
  • EA7-Emporio Armani (2011–present)

    • References

    Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA