leggi in italiano »
Silvio, I have a few questions regarding the Senior National Team of Carlo Mosca… At long last thanks to a team selection without a sponsor, Italy clearly has the strongest team. Our problem in the past was the sponsor had to play at least one third of the boards and that left us little if any chance of winning as they were almost uniformly not strong players.
If the paying sponsor is a player like Freeman, Zimmermann or Angelini then the team is competitive, many of our sponsors are unfortunately not good players.
Looking at the Senior’s performance, is it premature to say that the results to date have already been a personal success for Carlo Mosca?
I’m happy to say that the results are more than positive. Still, because of the team selection by Carlo, he sent a solid team and even when they were in trouble they did not give up and displayed fighting spirit, especially in the match against Austria. Thankfully, there are no ‘prima donnas’. I lent my full support to Carlo on his team selections, even if the formula was not ideal, we were short of time and under the circumstances, I think it is fair to say we did a more than a good job. Carlo deserves a lot of the the credit for our good showing in the Europeans this year.
And what about the Women’s National Team that qualified for the Venice Cup?
Naturally I am over joyed with the result. But in Women’s Team I think there is a big underlying problem. The Italian women players usually have a big problem at the table: they lose concentration and therefore get nervous and make half their actual value. The foreign women players are ‘professional’, the Italian women no: i mean, the bridge is not their profession and, except Gabriella Olivieri, have very little experience outside of Italy and have not strong international sponsors.
What do you think was the impact due to the absense of Paoluzi – Golin?
I am very sorry for the incident at Simonetta, frankly I believe the pair Manara – Ferlazzo, their replacements were very solid and so I do not think that this forced last-minute change weakened the team.