The former player of Schio, Venezia and Lucca, will be head coach in Serie B from this year. Pianeta Basket asked her to tell us about this journey
Two years ago the decision to leave basketball played. Francesca Dotto how is it going?
“Overall good, very good. It wasn’t easy also because the decision to leave the field was a bit forced due to the problems with my hip that continued to hurt me even after. Now I’ve had surgery and so I really hope that things will get better. Difficult because suddenly you find yourself having to rebuild your life, if you don’t already have something else to do you have plenty of free time. It’s difficult to find a balance. I wanted to continue my studies by taking a master’s degree in environmental engineering, after completing the three-year degree in environmental civil engineering in Pisa, my last year playing in Ragusa”.
Francesca Dotto, born in 1993, intelligent playmaker, highly competitive and efficient, 4 championships – one in Lucca and three in Schio – three Italian Cups and 4 Italian Super Cups always with Schio. She played 96 times with the senior national team and won a gold with the Under 18 in 2010. In 2014-15 she won the Reverberi Award as best Italian player. Caterina’s twin, also a playmaker who will play with Derthona Basket in Serie A1 this year. Numbers and statistics, a summary of a beautiful career, which however do not convey the skill and importance of Francesca on the court. Here is the farewell letter to the palacesntro written by Francesca
Studying as a priority and then a career as a coach?
“Eh…career…slowly I’m just at the beginning. I wanted to try it out of curiosity, I wanted to understand how to train, how to teach basketball. I was and am very curious, amused and enthusiastic. And speaking of studies, I was looking for something that I could reconcile with my lesson schedules. The B series with which I started the adventure of coach – assistant – last year allows me this because many of the girls work, they free up for the evening and this is perfect for me too. Last year I was the assistant of coach Michele Tomei at Melsped Padova and we reached the B series final with Virtus Cagliari who won. Then I received a surprise – but with equal enthusiasm – call from Giuseppe Piazza to be his assistant in the U20 with Michele Dall’Ora. It was a very beautiful experience. Piazza and Dall’Ora contributed in some way to my training and made me feel part of the staff right away. Beautiful. Then, when I returned from the U20 national team, I received a call from Thermal Padova to be the coach of the first team, still in Serie B. An intense summer without a doubt”.
What’s the most surprising aspect of the transition from the pitch to the bench?
“As a player you don’t realize all the organization that goes into getting you on the court. And as a player you have a set time: training, therapy, rest, alternatives, hobbies, moments in which – at least that’s how I did it – you unplug from basketball. When you’re a coach, everything actually changes, you think about basketball almost 24 hours a day, you realize that there’s a precise reason for everything you do. Optimizing everything and learning how to transmit information to your team are fundamental. A coach’s pace is definitely higher.”
Do you already have your own idea about basketball?
“Premature question for two reasons. I didn’t make the team and I don’t have the experience yet. Of course I have some starting ideas: if you don’t defend, like I tried to do, you won’t get anywhere so I think my team will have a defensive identity. Then we’ll see as the work progresses, also adapting to the characteristics of the players I’ll have available. A common thread between Francesca the player and Francesca the coach is that I would like to get to know the qualities of my players as best as I did with my teammates. And – I’ll ask a question – I don’t know what my future will be: engineer or coach? For now the priority is studying but basketball is right there, because as always I will give my best starting from the day of the camp, right after mid-August. In a year I will answer this question”.
2024-08-07 19:29:41
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