Milano Vs Žalgiris now sits inside a much bigger story than one EuroLeague fixture. Armani Olimpia Milano have moved quickly after Friday’s 73-84 loss to Valencia Basket, dismissing Giuseppe Poeta and underlining just how far the club has fallen in round 10.
The decision comes after a brutal stretch of results that leaves Milano at 1-9 in EuroLeague play, with eight consecutive defeats and a place at the bottom of the table alongside Kosner Baskonia. For a club used to competing for the Scudetto and domestic trophies, that is not just a bad run. It is a structural alarm.
A short stay ends in a hard reset
Poeta had taken over from Ettore Messina in November 2025, but the turnaround never arrived. Milano’s lone bright spot in the competition came in the second round, when they beat Virtus Bologna 87-85. Since then, the losses have piled up, and the Valencia game became the point at which the club decided the project could not continue in its current form.
That is why the timing matters. A change after one defeat can look emotional. A change after one victory in nine matches does not. It looks like a club trying to stop the slide before it gets any worse.
Marco Ramondino is scheduled to lead Olimpia against Trento in the Italian league on Sunday, which gives Milano an immediate short-term solution while the club waits to clarify the longer-term plan. Luca Banchi is mentioned as the likely permanent successor, although no official announcement has been made.
What the numbers say
The record tells the story plainly enough: 1-9 after 10 rounds, with eight straight EuroLeague defeats. But the deeper concern is not only the losing streak itself. It is that Milano have become a team defined by instability, with no evidence yet that the early-season reset under Poeta could hold against top-level European opposition.
In that sense, the Valencia loss was more than a scoreline. It was another sign that the club has not found a reliable identity in the competition. One win over Virtus Bologna suggested there was still a route back into contention. The eight defeats that followed suggested otherwise.
Now Milano head toward Sunday’s meeting with Trento in the Italian league under Ramondino, but the bigger question is obvious: who will be in charge when the real rebuild begins, and can the club recover quickly enough to salvage a season that is already slipping away?
