The champions who changed everything in basketball – Diario de Valdivia

[#HistoriasDiarioSur] Twenty years ago Deportivo Valdivia won the Dimayor 2001 title, a victory that sparked a sports revolution that persists to this day. Know the ins and outs.

20 years ago Deportivo Valdivia won its first major title, the Dimayor 2001 basketball tournament, the first of the three stars that the cast of Calle Calle has won at the national level.

Deportivo Valdivia was founded in 1985, precisely to represent Valdivia in the Dimayor Basket League tournament and replace the void left by Phoenix at the beginning of the 1980s.

The city already had an important basket-making past since the Valdivian team was national champion in 1937, going through the 1950s in the golden age of Chilean basketball and the basket-making revolution of the 1960s with the contribution of Costa Rican Edy Bermúdez as player and coach. and that the city was able to enjoy well into the 1970s.

In 1989, Deportivo Valdivia reached the Dimayor final that year, but was defeated by Deportes Ancud. Until that moment it had been the best position achieved by the club chaired by the leader Carlos Kunstmann, who received the post from the leader Antonio Azurmendy, manager of Valdivia’s good streak in this sport.

COMBINATIONS

In 1999 Deportivo Valdivia had the worst participation that is remembered where it ends in last place and only making comparsa. In 2000 a notorious change was achieved, always by the hand of coach Marcos Guzmán, but achieving an interesting mixture of young talents such as Nelson Méndez, Ramiro Vera or Mauricio Martel, plus the newcomers Francisco Zepeda and Víctor Zamora, plus the foreigner Victor Alexander. , an intractable pivot under the hoops.

Almost unintentionally, this 2000 team reached the semifinal, being eliminated by Universidad de Concepción, but meeting expectations by far, thus the historic year 2001 appeared.

That year began with several complications, although Paulo Henríquez, Johnny Gómez and the American Reginald Poole were added. Unfortunately, the second foreigner to pair with Poole could not be found. Some foreigners arrived and were only there for a couple of games and they left because they didn’t get along with the group, even the Argentine Bruno Yovanovich arrived who painted to be a contribution, but after a while he got into a fight with the leaders and left Valdivia.

The squad formed by Marcos Guzmán played very tactically, but not having a second foreigner gave it a great advantage over teams that were already well formed, such as Universidad de Concepción, Provincial Osorno or Provincial Llanquihue.

In one of the many training sessions, the player Paulo Henríquez, who last season had defended the UDE of Temuco, mentioned to the coaching staff that he knew that the American power forward Tony Bishop was without a club, after a monetary disagreement with the Hispanics. DT Guzmán took note of that name.

MAKE WAY TO VALDIVIA!

Although Tony Bishop was not a player of great individual talents, he contributed a lot to the team both on and off the court. His positive, humble and generous personality raised the mood of the dressing room to what the group had already been doing.

Deportivo Valdivia qualified that 2001 in seventh place in the table and went to the Play Offs against the powerful cast of Universidad de Concepción. Nobody gave a penny for Valdivia! In the first game the red and whites won 86-69 and everyone opened their eyes. Something is happening here! In the second game, the penquistas won 98-75 and it seemed that everything “was back to normal on Planet Basketball. For the rematches at the Coliseum, CDV wins the third battle 93-78 and in the fourth game it repeats 88-81 and becomes the first team to finish seventh in a regular phase that reached the semifinal and knocking down a candidate for the title. The semifinal rival? Nothing less than the Toros de Provincial Osorno with super baseman Patrick Sáez at the helm.

Valdivia again faces the challenge from small to large and passes the fence. A Paulo Henríquez “on fire” and a brilliant Reginald Poole led the Valdivian band to fight Osorno with partials 91-77, 97-86 and 106-86 that last match at a packed Coliseum and with emotion on the surface, Valdivia was installed in a championship final after 12 years, but the rival was a “monster of the lake”, the powerful Provincial Llanquihue with the talented, stocky and unfriendly Dominican Jack Michael Martínez, a fierce 19-year-old and 2.03 meters tall.

CDV IN ECSTASY

The 2001 title was the first to be decided by playing all seven games in its entirety. Another fact that disarmed all the schemes up to that moment.

The pressure from Valdivia was strong, considering the past as a basket player compared to a club like Llanquihue that had resources, proactive leaders, but did not have a gym according to what a final required compared to the Antonio Azurmendy Coliseum, named after it in 1996 after the death of the great leader.

The dispute of the bars was not long in coming in the gyms. La Dimayor was a red-hot cauldron in the south, added to the strong regionalist environment that Valdivia and its communes lived with the process of managing a region separate from the Los Lagos Region. The pot steamed a thousand in each game!

In Llanquihue the first match was in favor of Valdivia by 109-104 and the white and red showed that the invincible “Monster of the lake” could be defeated. In the rematch CDV fell 98-108.

In the Coliseum, the third game was for the lakes by 91-76 and in the fourth game the albirrojos claimed by 79-75 and leaving the series tied 2-2 and with incidents between the local fans and the Llanquihuana star Jack Martínez.

The fifth game was “a battle of muscles” in Llanquihue, as both teams finished tied at 105 and Llanquihue won 112-109 in extra time. Prior to the sixth game in Valdivia, the local media wrote an emotional letter to the red-and-white squad, the letter was read by captain Francisco Zepeda and several of them had their blood removed in the locker room. That night Marcos Guzmán’s men played a round match to beat Llanquihue 104-96.

In the midst of all this atmosphere, it is discovered that veteran Daniel Viafora had tested positive for doping and is punished. A strong blow for the lacustrine, also in the seventh game the programming is changed to the municipal gym of Puerto Montt that gave a little more capacity to the small gym of Llanquihue, although very far from what the Valdivia Coliseum offered.

On January 19, 2002, in the Lota street gym in Puerto Montt, the “mother of all battles” took place. A worn-out Llanquihue against a Valdivia with their spirits in the sky and the victory went to those from Calle Calle by 99-85.

Reginal Poole scored 23 points, Víctor Zamora 22, Ramiro Vera 18, Paulo Henríquez 4, Sandor Bravo 14, Francisco Zepeda 2, Nelson Méndez 5, Claus Prützmann 2, Johnny Gómez 9, plus Tony Bishop who did not score, as well as Diego Luci and Felipe Henriquez. For Llanquihue the best hands were those of Mack Hilton with 24 and Jack Martínez with 21.

PARTY

That night the celebration was unforgettable. The campus was overflowing with happiness or with tears of emotion, while the fans who traveled from Valdivia were in glory. Víctor Zamora hugs prop man Nilson Contreras who cries like a child and a youthful Claus Prützmann yells in Nelson Méndez’s face “How I love you brother, thanks for everything!”. In another corner Ramiro Vera, Tony Bishop and Sandor Bravo jump with the cup and show it to the fans in the midst of an unforgettable frenzy. In another corner, the “teacher” Guzmán smiles reflectively… we will never know what things went through his head when he saw the joy of his direction.

Another emotional moment was experienced upon returning to Valdivia, at about 3 in the morning caravans of cars from Paillaco to the same City of Rivers joined. The team reached the Plaza de la República and exhibited the cup they had won with so much effort and before a crowd of fans.

That January 19 and the early hours of January 20 changed basketball in Valdivia forever. The fans increased, the children adopted it as their favorite sport and joined the minor series that Javier Ramírez directed at that time. The club understood that the hotbed was the future and that, in one way or another, pushed the club’s administration to think more professionally and with a sense of community.

After the 2001 title, the party continued with the 2002 South American Club Championship where Valdivia was vice-champion, now not with Marcos Guzmán, but with the replacement of Jorge Luis Álvarez on the bench, an injury that a professional like Guzmán did not forget so easy.

In 2004, the Argentine coach Juan Manuel Córdoba arrived, transcendental in training and players and a coaching staff in the training and recreational field

In 2009, Valdivia reached the final again, but lost it against Liceo Mixto and playing with a “youth patrol”, but claimed the titles of the now Liga Nacional de Básquetbol (LNB) from 2015-2016 and 2018-2019.

2001 was the beginning of something great with fundamental players, but with other key names such as coach Marcos Guzmán, club president Carlos Kunstmann, leaders Juan Enrique Taladriz, Sergio Carrasco, Donaldo Contreras, Humberto Escobar, statistician Claudio Arriagada or prop Nilson Contreras, all of them contributing at a key moment in this emblematic sport.

The 2001 champions arrived to turn Chilean basketball upside down. They changed everything… and for the better.

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The champions who changed everything in basketball – Diario de Valdivia