In the Forest Arena, home of the Alliance Sport Alsace, the fruit of the collaboration between the clubs of Gries and Souffelweyersheim since 2021, Pierre Tavano, new assistant coach of the Bas-Rhin team, will find the ADA on his way Blois.
For the former coach of Tours MB, a club of which he took the reins in 2016 and which he brought up from N2 to Pro B, the last confrontation with the Loir-et-Chérien club also awakens a memorable memory.
“I remember this last match where we won against the ADA which then went up”
Because if his Touraine team had won against Mickaël Hay’s troop on May 13, 2022 during the 34e and last day of Pro B, this did not prevent the incredible direct comeback of the TMB, which is still today the best relegated in history with no less… fourteen victories!
“Ah I remember this last match where we won against the ADA which then went up…recalls Pierre Tavano. Not all the teams played at their best this last day of the regular season… But hey, I prefer to keep only the positives of this great adventure even if I know that the story could have been different because if we had maintained ourselves, I would have been kept and I think that the TMB would still be in Pro B today. »
The drama then the appeal of Vincent Collet
Having left for the South immediately to take over from Laurent Sciarra at Hyères-Toulon (N1), it was not a success with a premature end to the collaboration after only sixteen matches and thirteen losses. And a few weeks later, in March 2023, Pierre Tavano then experienced the worst with the death of his young son aged 5 years, in Tours. “A drama” with whom the tactician must live but also move forward, so as not to sink.
In this sense, the call from his partner Vincent Collet, whose assistant he was at Le Mans, Asvel and Strasbourg from 2000 to 2016, was saving at the start of 2024: the former coach of the Blues needing a video assistant for the international window in February. This period, which ended with two victories for the French team against Croatia and Bosnia, “wasn’t easy” but made him “a lot of good” to “put back in” and prove to himself and to the world of French basketball that he was “ready to go”.
“Trumo is a true friend”
And this is what made Nebojsa Bogavac, known as Trumo, call the latter to join him on the bench of the ASA last July. With for the moment an assessment “relatively satisfactory” of eight successes for eight losses and an honest 10e place for a club which only has the 18e budget for the twenty training courses in the division.
“Trumo took over the team in November 2023, moving it from last place to qualifying for the play-offs. His assistant left and he offered me the job this summerspecifies Pierre Tavano. You should know that like me he was an assistant to Vincent (Collet) in Strasbourg before I arrived in Tours and that he also played under us with Vincent at Le Mans and at Asvel! So beyond the professional relationship, Trumo is a true friend. So it’s a pleasure to work together and even more so with a team that is at the level. We can always do better, knowing that we have lost three times in a row at home and three times by only one or two points (against Antibes, Évreux and Orléans), but we are on our ropes! »
Enough to welcome the ADA on Friday evening with envy. Even if the person who assists the Montenegrin technician every day, with video analysis as a major area of expertise, knows that his team will have “not an easy game to play” after studying the Blesois case: “Blois has a very good team, which has experienced a dip recently but which remains on two successes including a big match in Roanne and a success at home where it took place against HTV. It will be necessary at all costs to prevent them from going into steamroller mode. »
This Friday, December 20, at 8:30 p.m., in Gries (Bas-Rhin).
