2023-11-13 05:01:00
By 1985, even though he had only played one season in the NBA, Michael Jordan was already the fashionable player, the new star who came to electrify the game and give another leap in popularity to Chicago, its sponsors and the competition. In that first campaign, MJ had even eclipsed the stars of the time, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, with a spectacular style and impressive averages (28.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.4 steals) that earned him the Rookie of the Year award. Year will be too small…
Nike, impacted by the sales of the first model of Air Jordan sneakers, also began to see its enormous potential and wanted to start moving it around the world, in order to globalize the brand. That’s why he announced a tour of Europe and began looking for possible destinations.
Giuseppe Stefanel, a well-known women’s fashion businessman who had just become the new owner of a team in Trieste, found out and used his contacts in the clothing field to achieve the unthinkable: get MJ to play in the charming Charbolla Hall stadium in the port city located in northwest Italy. Thus a match was organized between Stefanel Trieste and the famous Juve Caserta who, in the following two years, would be finalists in the Korac Cup (85) and the Italian Lega (86 and 87) with two South American stars in their ranks, the Brazilian Oscar Schmidt and Uruguayan Tato López.
Before the game and always moving by helicopter, Jordan made tourist visits to Valtellina, Caspoggio and Bormio, cities bordering the Swiss Alps. In the last one, as part of the agreement with Nike, he participated in a 5 vs 5 exhibition with Mike D’Antoni, the current coach and then Milano star and absolute idol of the region. Then the group made a gastronomic stop in Venice to eat at the famous Colomba restaurant and Michael only wanted to play a round of golf because the Lido course was closed that day.
That Monday, August 26, the 23rd and his entourage arrived at the stadium with the idea of having a relaxed exhibition, with MJ playing for a while for each team. But they didn’t count on Michael and his passion. For playing and competing as he only could.
Right from the start, when they were in the locker room, Michael warned that it was not the best thing to play with the visiting team in Trieste. Bogdan Tanjevic, a legendary Yugoslavian coach with a very long (41 years) and successful career, led Caserta and remembered the previous moments well despite the 38 years that passed since that show. “I remember that Jordan asked to play for the weakest team and also not go out for the entire game. He wanted to show everything he had, he was seen as a boy with a lot of passion,” recalled who, among other achievements, led Turkey to a surprising final in the 2010 World Cup.
From his residence precisely in Trieste, the city of that game and where he stayed to live after coaching the local team between 1986 and 1994, Tanjevic recounted a surprising conversation he had with MJ. “I told him that I had met him in 1981, when we had visited the University of North Carolina to play a match with the Yugoslav U22 team that I coached. And I was shocked when he said that he remembered the friendly and, above all, he spoke to me punctually. of a player, who was our star, (Drazen) Dalipagic. He even pronounced his last name correctly,” he said, still impressed.
Once on the field, to fulfill his promise, Jordan only put on the white Caserta shirt during part of the warm-up. And then he put on the beautiful jacket with more orange than black that gave birth to a limited edition of those Air Jordan I, with Stefanel’s colors. That he played for the local team generated delirium among the public, as Michael had imagined. Some believe that MJ had found another motivation for that match, specifically a rival.
As he remembered Dalipagic, they say he also knew about Schmidt, the fearsome Brazilian shooter who was the Italian Lega’s top scorer. They claim that, although it was not yet his peak of fame, MJ knew stories about Oscar, including the Nets’ interest in signing him (they tried for three years in a row) after choosing him in the 1984 draft (in the sixth round ), the same one he had come from. True to his competitive personality, facing one of the foreign figures of the time could have been one of his motivations for the match.
It is clear that, for Jordan, there were no exhibitions. That’s why it wasn’t surprising that he took the game seriously and deployed his entire arsenal. He scored 41 points, with all kinds of acrobatic and spectacular plays, showing off his versatility and offensive resources.
López, the Uruguayan who years later would become a well-known player in our country for his brilliant career with his team but above all for the mark he left in the National League, was Caserta’s recent acquisition and told his memories from Montevideo that has from that duel. “I had only arrived in Italy seven days ago and I was very attentive to many things, not so much to Jordan. At that moment I remember that it generated a great impact, although no one imagined what it would become,” Tato said.
MJ scored a couple of luxurious assists and witnesses say that, although he missed a lot, including the triple that forced overtime, each action fascinated and generated more “uuhhh”s from the crowd. Of course, there was one action in particular that allowed that match to go down in history almost as a myth.
Halfway through the first half when, in his best moment of the night, MJ ran a counterattack and, reaching the rim, decided to show off his jump and plasticity. She flew and flew, passed by López – he was standing on his way to the hoop – and hit the dunk called Tomahawk, with style and fierceness. The board couldn’t hold and burst into pieces.
The rain of glass surprised the rivals who were left standing under the ring and two Caserta players were injured, López himself and the Italian Pietro Generalli. All reports indicate that they had minor injuries that were healed at the time, but Tanjevic surprises by saying that this was not the case. “I remember it as a moment of great drama and concern because two of my important players ended up in the hospital. Tato had to undergo surgery on a tendon in his right hand and was out of competition for two months, just when we were starting the season. I of Generalli was less, but he still lost 15 days,” he explained.
López, from Uruguay, admitted that he was injured. Those who breathed were the Nike executives, who saw how Jordan escaped from the glass and suffered no consequences. López explained why the accident happened. “It’s not that it was such a strong dunk. It happened that, at that time, the retractable hoops were not used as much and that board was not in condition,” he analyzed. The match ended after the half hour it took to replace the board, but the final result has been a mystery to many, including Tanjevic. “I took like six staples after the game and I don’t remember it,” he admitted without drama.
It all ended 113-112 for Stefanel in overtime. It was predictable… MJ, as expected, was not going to allow himself to lose. It was part of her essence.
#day #young #Jordan #smashed #board #Italy #hurt #rivals #Firsthand #testimonies #duel #Trieste #history