Paris Basketball is now in the deep end of the Euroleague. If he wants to convince himself, he can look at his calendar for the next ten days. After his trip to Milan this Friday (8:30 p.m., Skweek), he will play in Dijon this Sunday in the championship before returning to the European scene next Tuesday against Panathinaikos, the European champion club, at Bercy. 48 hours later, the Parisians will travel to Munich before hosting Nanterre at the Accor Arena on Sunday October 20.
So it starts with Milan for a first trip and to meet one of the legends of this sport: the Italian coach Ettore Messina. Quadruple winner of the competition with Bologna (1998, 2001) and CSKA Moscow (2006, 2008), he is one of the rare Europeans to have had an assistant coaching position in the NBA, at the Lakers with Kobe Bryant, and at the Spurs in the Tony Parker era. In Milan, there is also a French player: Fabien Causeur, double European champion with Real Madrid in 2018 and 2023. The former Cholet player has just arrived in Italy. He is the first tricolor that Paris meets this season before the return of Mathias Lessort to the Accor Arena, two months after the Olympic final, Tuesday, with the Greek club.
Historical bastion of European basketball, “EA7 Emporio Armani Milan”, full name of the Lombard club, is a declared and very credible candidate for the Final Four. Its budget, the third largest on the board (€33M) behind those of Real (€49M) and Pana (€35M) attests to this. The task awaiting Paris Basketball, a week after its baptism of fire against Red Star Belgrade (77-80), therefore promises to be complicated. Even if the Milanese started their journey badly with a first defeat in Monaco (93-80). It is also a problem for Paris: Milan, with its ambitions, cannot start the season with two defeats, especially for a first at home.
