For some time now in Italian baseball circles there has been talk of a long-term project. This is Club Italia LA28: as the name itself suggests, this plan aims to bring the Italian team, within four years, to be able to compete in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. It should be remembered that the last time the Italian team qualified for the five-round event was linked to Athens 2004. Then, between the missed Beijing 2008, the exit of baseball and softball and the return with a failed qualifying tournament right in our country and finally new exclusion in Paris 2024, another period that had decidedly little Olympic content.
Last March, in Grosseto, the Club Italia LA28 program started, which draws its inspiration from the terrible experience of the 2023 European Championships, in which Italy played the worst continental tournament ever, being eliminated from the race for medals already in the in groups. As reported by FIBS in the press release of March 22 with the words of its president Andrea Marcon“Club Italia LA28 is the brand that identifies the athlete development program which aims to qualify our national teams for the 2028 Games, essentially through the creation of high-level preparation and playing opportunities before, after and, when possible, during the season, extending the number of months, shifts at bat and rounds played for the boys and girls who will be called upon to achieve this qualification on the field“. The mention for girls is obviously linked to softball, which however is in a much more favorable situation both in the present and in the future having currently a predominant position in Europe compared to the great rivals the Netherlands.
Six months and one Haarlem Week later, another opportunity is coming for the Azzurri. A group, in fact, is flying to the other side of the ocean, specifically to the University of Tampa (but also to Surprise, in the spring training facility of the Kansas City Royals), for some matches including those against the Spartans. The names are those of Mattia Aldegheri, Gabriele Angioi, Andres Antonio Annunziata Nino, Marco Artitzu, Mattia Bernardis, Nicholas Bertoldi, Matteo Bocchi, Niccolò Cinelli, Diego Gergolet, Ettore Giulianelli, Matteo Marelli, Lorenzo Morresi, Riccardo Nepoti, Francesco Pomponi, Corrado Resca, Mattia Sireus, Giacomo Taschin, Federico Virgadaula and Enrico Zanchi.
Some of them are veterans of the Italian championship, others are men looking to launch also from the two matches against Tampa on 18 and 19 October and from the intrasquad that will be played on the 20th. It will be a first opportunity to launch the run-up towards all appointments in the near future. In between there are (at least) two European Championships and a World Baseball Classic, despite the particularity of the latter. All this while, in Italian baseball, not only on the field, many things are moving.
