Ettore Messina Turned Down France Team

Italian Coaching Star Admits Saying No to Les Bleus

Dec 4, 2008

Ettore Messina, head coach at CSKA Moscow, admitted to an Italian newspaper that he turned down an offer to coach the French national team.

CSKA Moscow head coach Ettore Messina says he would never be a traitor against his country and that was a big reason the Italian coaching great said no to an offer by the French basketball federation to coach the French national team.

Messina's native Italy is one of the two teams that France is due to play in next summer's Additional Qualifying Round for 2009 EuroBasket in Poland along with Finland. "The truth is that I did turn down the opportunity to coach the French national team," Messina said in the Italian daily La Stampa, as reported by fibaeurope.com on December 4.

Messina added: "But not for rules that could pose a problem but because I will never be a traitor to my country. We will play against France in a game that means life and death to all of Italian basketball. I will never coach a team that could decide negatively the destiny of my national team."

Messina coached the Italian national team from 1993 to 1997 before moving to the club level. He won the Euroleague title with Italian club Virtus Bologna in 1998 and 2001 and then captured the Euroleague crown twice with Russian giants CSKA Moscow in 2006 and 2008.

Messina has long been considered the top candidate to become the first European to earn a head coaching position in the NBA, especially after seeing the success in the NBA of Mike D'Antoni, who starred as a player and coach in Italy. Most observers believe Messina - a 49-year-old native of Catania, Italy - will land with the Toronto Raptors, especially with Maurizio Gherardini as Toronto's Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations. Gherardini was the general manager of Italian club Benetton Treviso for many, many years until 2006. And Messina was the coach at Benetton Treviso from 2002 to 2005.

The firing of Sam Mitchell more or less opens the door for Messina to take over as Raptors coach after this season. On the eve before CSKA Moscow's Euroleague title win in 2008, Messina announced he was coming back to Moscow for one more season. That leaves Messina open for a club for 2009-2010. And Toronto, which hired Mitchell's assistant Jay Triano on the interim, would be a perfect him.

The CSKA coach in the La Stampa article also once again addressed rumors surrounding him going to Spanish giants Barcelona, saying: "Regarding the rumors of going to Barcelona, I can only say that I don't know what I will do at the end of the season."

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