Gualco, the wizard of basket who actually made the “Cumenda” and the “Communist” get married

Giancarlo Gualco (photo to the side) had already been, and for a long time, in the history of the Italian and Varese basketball; as an extraordinary manager for competence and feeling with the victory, as an ex good-level player, as a person of rare humanity, he had always transparent ways, which were inspired and guided by those values that are a quality of gentlemen.

Now he can enrich the extraordinary records book of his life as a sports man with the intense, devoted and sad memory of the thousands of supporters who followed and esteemed him. Now they still thank him, like we journalists of Varese still do- in particular Ettore, Max and I-, to have contributed to let everyone live a unique athletic epic. It has been the beautiful relation with the journalists, which was born and built by everyone in the total cult of a strong respect for ourselves, for the supporters and for the readers. This situation is not easily verifiable somewhere else, because it can happen that there are insensitive managers and because it is difficult to find information workers who are able to resist the temptation to steal a news from anybody, including their friends. In Varese we managed it without never betraying the society’s, the team’s and also the outside’s trust. Those did not imply sacrifices to our job as informer and critics and so there were disputes, disagreements and controversies, but thinking about it again, the occasions of “war” were rare; in fact we had to follow the most powerful machine of basket, become also the queen of Europe.

At the end of the 60es, “Gianca”, who replaced one of his teammates in the 50es, Sergio Marelli, was in charge of starting again more or less from the beginning after some quite unlucky events that saw a very furious Mr Borghi saddle the son-in-law Adalberto Tedeschi with the team. The young recent president decided to trust in Gualco; their good disposition, their will of acting well in the sign of clarity joined them. In two consecutive seasons there was an unexpected Italian three-coloured win and the success in the ULEB Champions League, behind which there were choices of a manager that enjoy a wide autonomy and a touch of luck that often kisses the brave.

Nico Messina from the youth team moved to the bench of Serie A and won the championship, it were decisive in the two great competition the purchase of players like Raga and Jones, then the recovery of Ossola, exile in Milan and at the end the signing of Aza Nikolic (photo at right VareseNews Archive), a man who could win the Nobel as a coach.

Gualco spoke with him for six hours at the airport of Belgrado and then he managed to convince him to move to Varese where he created the record Ignis.  Nikolic had been recommended from Luigi Cicoria, ex international referee, Gualco immediately understood that this would be the perfect purchase. Aza trained at Padova with a remarkable advantages, in Yugoslavia he was a legend.  The patron Borghi, the “cumenda”, at the end of the game with the Venetians in Masnago – I was there- when he met him he named him “ communist”. In short he did not love him, and even Borghi wanted the  return of Ossola who left Varese because he did not like the environment. The two transactions went through, Gualco was able to convince even those accustomed to the “ Yes sir”. The beloved Gianca  ( at right with Bisson and Flaborea  during Giovanni Borghi visit, when he was hospitalized- archive VareseNews) made a great professional career, he also had a beautiful family and he saw his son Maurizio play in the Serie A for own merits. The destiny set a terrible trap for him during the years we thought destined to a decline not traumatic. Then fate snatched him the health and the serenity  that everyone wants.

He suffered too much.

Today he is in a dimension where Christians hope that he is worrying and where it would be fantastic that one day the endless company of those who sang hymns to the glory of the yellow blue  while Giancarlo was already thinking about the next rivals to beat, will met again. He loved an old Japanese saying: “ After the victory tighten the straps of your armor.”