In Athens, Coach Messina will coach his 500th top European competition game

Thirty-two years after his debut, in Larnaca, Cyprus, with a 109-88 win for his team, Virtus Bologna, Coach Ettore Messina is preparing to cross the threshold of 500 games coached in the top international European competition. The Olimpia coach has coached in 421 games in the current EuroLeague, the next one in Athens will be number 422, but until the 2000/01 season the top European competition was organized by FIBA. Messina coached in that Euroleague for four seasons, including the 1997/98 season when he led his team to the championship, for a total of 78 games coached. Since 2000/01, when the modern era began, he has amassed 421 games between Bologna, CSKA Moscow (six years, in two different stints), Real Madrid and Milan. With Olimpia, the next will be game number 122, counting the four games played last year against the Russian teams, which were eliminated from the standings, but not from the official statistics. In all they make 499 games with 344 wins, 68.9% of wins. The next one will be number 500. Coach Messina had also coached in the second European competition over three different seasons, amassing 38 more games (29 wins). So, he has already passed the 500 international games coached overall, not counting obviously the National Teams.