Basketball, Datome’s announcement: ”I’m retiring after the World Cup”

”I’m retiring after the World Cup”. Gigi Datome announces farewell to competitive career in basketball. The captain of the national team, who turned 36 in November, revealed his choice to retire at the end of the world championship scheduled from 25 August to 10 September in the Philippines in a long and exciting video posted on his social networks.

“I lived a dream”

”There are no easy ways to say what I have to tell you and so I’ll go straight to the point: I’ll stop playing basketball, I’ll finish playing basketball”, the incipit of Datome’s video. ”Twenty years have passed since I started playing. When I was 14-15 when I left, I just wanted to see if the love of basketball could become my life. I had so much fun, it’s been a crazy 20 years. Thanks to those who made me live this dream”. And the tributes are many looking back on his career: Siena, Scafati and Rome (“the last year at Virtus one of the most beautiful ever”, before arriving in Milan, with which he won the last two championships (the last brought the third star to Olimpia), two Italian Cups and a Super Cup. Without forgetting the experiences in the NBA, with the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics. And the one with which he dominated in Europe, with Fenerbahce (”unforgettable years in Istanbul, with nine titles and the 2017 Euroleague”).

”One regret…”

So the World Cup at the end of August will be Datome’s last competition as a player. He himself does not hide a small bitterness: ” I have only one regret – he explains in the video -, never having won a medal with the national team. However, I want to continue dreaming a little longer, which is why I will join the national team again this summer. I thank Pozzecco and the group that will allow me to play the last matches of my career with the Azzurro, which is the most prestigious shirt I’ve ever worn”. He who knows that the icing on the cake will not arrive.

Future in Milan

Not even the time to announce the farewell that for Datome the future has already been written, which will still be with Olimpia Milano. It was the Italian champion club itself who announced it with a note: ”He had come to win in Italy as a protagonist. With five trophies in three years he achieved his goal. But much more than this, together with Sergio Rodriguez, Kyle Hines, Nicolò Melli, he contributed decisively to building not so much a winning team but a culture, a way of being and doing, which will be handed down to the new generations of players of the ‘Olimpia’, wrote the Lombard club. ” This is also why Gigi Datome will continue to be part of the Olimpia family, making use of the experience he has gained over the course of his career and continuing to promote certain values ​​off the pitch, just as he did as a player ”.

Armani: ”Brave choice, a leader”

”In the three years spent together, Gigi Datome has shown us what it means to be a true leader: a champion of technique but above all of perseverance in overcoming obstacles and adversities. A great example on and off the pitch, with the many victories he helped win, he will remain in Olimpia’s moral heritage”. This is how Giorgio Armani, patron of EA7 Milano, commented on the news of the imminent end of Gigi Datome’s career. ” The announced retirement is a courageous choice because it takes place in one of the best moments of his career. But Datome can retire with a Scudetto on his chest, with the trophy for best player of the final in hand, accompanied by the embrace of his fans and the applause of all fans of the sport. I am sincerely admired”, added Armani.