fbonard

“It’s all here”, says Cecilia pointing at her head. Learning how to shoot; shoot well by snapping the wrist, with your pointer finger aiming at the bottom of the net, is a matter of muscles, body, but especially mind. It is an approach, an attitude, a way of being. It’s Sunday morning and we are alone at Maltepe Park. This seafront park is equipped for all sports, from soccer to skating. The basketball pitches lay under the shade of a vivid red giant Turkish flag.

There are six of them and they are deserted. Sunday breakfast is sacred here, a family ritual, an observed tradition, which allows us to move freely and to take a few photos without being disturbed. Cecilia Zandalasini moves around confident on the court. She is friendly and in the blink of an eye she gets intense, she is “on”. Just like all amateurs watching a professional, our minds are blown by the speed and beauty of her gestures. Everything seems so simple. Cecilia is having fun, smile on her face, she is curious. When it comes down to it, she is just repeating, over and over again, the same movements that fill up her training days. But still, doing it with a camera on, seems to embarrass her. She might be a little shy or it is maybe just her character, private and introvert. She looks at her own hands, checking if they are good, if they’re sitting correctly on the ball.

Stating that Istanbul is a big city would be an understatement and would not give you the sense of what we are talking about. We could probably start by saying that there are two cities, a European and an Asian one. They are separated by the Bosphorus — a strait which connects the Black Sea to the North, and the Marmara Sea to the South — and joined by a few bridges, one of which looks like the more famous Golden Gate Bridge. Differently put, Istanbul extends over a surface as large as Friuli Venezia Giulia, with a population that is the same as the whole Pianura Padana. All this to say that we were able to see very little in only a few days, very little; yet one can notice sport in here, one can feel it, especially basketball. Moving around by taxi, we see pitches, hoops in every park, a lot of existing play areas and more under construction. Even though this might only be another chicken-and-hen dilemma, it is true that there are no players without fields.

In another warm (very warm) February day, we meet Nicolò Melli, who gives us a few hours of his morning off and makes himself available to create some content. His first approach is that of a real professional: he keeps it light, given that he is coming out of a match. We watched him dominating an “easy” competition yesterday, master of the court and key player both in defence and offence. Being beside him, you can perceive his mind set, the repetition of the “path-objective-result” sequence that made him rise from Reggio Emilia straight up to Fenerbahçe, one of today’s Euroleague top teams. We laugh and joke with him, even though Nik doesn’t like kidding on the basketball court, whether a warming up or a training. It’s like he wants to protect the game and keep it pure, respect it.

In this city basketball matters, it runs in many supporters’ veins, who are often more bound to the club, than to the sport itself. Supporting Fenerbahçe or Galatasaray is a faith, a divide that someone has likely chosen for you before you even knew what it meant. The match we watch at the Ülker Sports Arena — a Turkish Championship matinée — isn’t the best we could ask for. Still it is fascinating to observe the yellow-and-blue people supporting their players. The Turkish cheer sings, is very susceptible to the referee’s decisions and able to push the team when needed. Although the arena is not full today, it lets us imagine the atmosphere one could breathe here on a big Euroleague match.

At the pitch, Gigi does what you would expect from a boy who has come to toss the ball around on a Sunday afternoon. He enters the court, looks for the ball with his eyes, grabs it and starts shooting. Almost like a primordial attraction, or maybe a habit, a movement that his body knows too well and is part of his everyday routine. We have to stop him, change him and tell him what we need. He starts shooting again as soon as he can, smile on his face. I also smile thinking that one of the best players in Europe is in front of the lens of my camera and is just having fun by shooting at the basket. Pure and simple. Gigi grabs his phone with his huge hand (huge for real) and starts a call. He seems to be speaking fluent Turkish, as if it was normal for a player of his stature to learn such a tough and unusual language. He’s all recommendations for bars, cafés, clubs. He seems to be in love with the city, and with this whole world that has welcomed him four years ago and simply loves him back. He also seems to have grasped some of its secrets, through study and dedication, but also inclination for experiencing and for letting such a different reality become part of him. When leaving the pitch, an old woman asks for a picture. He kindly replies with a smile to his supporter, and we take the photo. Greets her and thanks her, “teşekkürler”.