“In 2018 we started a project from scratch, without a manager, without a basketball player; then we spent two years of pandemic that blocked us. Reaching a Uruguayan League final today is truly impressive, it is a great joy because the plan was for it to take another year,” Evaristo Gonzalez said.
In dialogue with Referee, the president of Peñarol basketball, and general secretary of the club, made an analysis of the road traveled and the future that awaits the aurinegro, who on Wednesday again beat Aguada to close the semifinal series with a convincing 3-0 Uruguayan Basketball League. From this Saturday, to the best of seven matches, the finals of the tournament will be played against Biguá.
“I am seriously convinced that the head of the project is what pushes you and is fundamental”González said in the first place about the figure of coach Pablo López, who reached his 11th Uruguayan League final in 17 tournaments directed in an event that is now in its 19th edition.
Leonardo Carreno
Pablo López, a bet to win
“The board believes in the project and supports it. But this is not from now. This started with (Jorge) Barrera and was redoubled by (Ignacio) Ruglio and the entire board. We have to respect and honor that trust.”pointed out the president of aurinegro basketball.
Peñarol played its first League last year with Edgardo Kogan as coach. They defeated Goes in the play-in and were eliminated by Urunday Universitario in the quarterfinals. In 2018 he had been the undefeated champion of the DTA and in 2019 he rose in the playoffs in El Metro by beating Cordón in three finals. In the current League, he opted for López as coach, got directly into the quarterfinals as fourth in the regular phase, eliminated Malvín 3-2 in a hard-fought series and then swept Aguada.
“Aguada’s budget is much higher than Peñarol’s and in basketball it is very notorious that the team with the highest budget usually ends up being the winner. But here there is something that López has always highlighted and that is that he wants a team, he does not want isolated figures. Y Peñarol has become a very solid team, committed, from the team to the player who supports in practice and that shows, we are not a team of great figures, we are a team that acts with solidity and commitment and that led us here, “he said.
Leonardo Carreno
Salvador Zanotta comes in a great League
Aguada suffered a lot of setbacks to face the series with Peñarol. Along the way, Mathías Calfani and Marcos Mata had been injured. After the first two games with the aurinegro he had to change to Tyreek Duren. Al Thornton and Leandro García Morales ended up playing undercover. “We took advantage of Aguada’s problems a bit,” López confessed, with greatness, just after the series ended.
But Peñarol also had its complications. The team was armed to be reinforced in December with the Puerto Rican David Huertaswho had been the best figure of the team in the 2021 League.
The team started with a term contract for DeAndre Liggins, a former teammate of LeBron James in the Cleveland Cavaliers, then appealed to Todd Brown, a former Trouville and in December found a surprising “no” from Huertas to hit the return.
We had to go to the market in a hurry. Vander Blue arrived with many scrolls: former youth team in the United States, top scorer in the Mexican league. But he didn’t walk. So he bet on Orlando Mendez, player of the Mexican national team, who was very difficult to bring to Uruguay due to the complications that existed due to the pandemic.
“He is a professional man, hyper responsible and serious in the game, He made us a better team. There was a time when we received a lot of criticism for the players that we stopped, but it was all because López was looking for the improvement of the team”.
Leonardo Carreno
The fans accompany Peñarol en masse
“The great game that Diego Soarez made and also what Gianfranco Espíndola did, which is a young project we have, gave me great joy. The starters, who generally play more than 30 minutes, were around 20′ against Aguada. That shows you that there is a committed team,” emphasized González.
The other two foreigners from Peñarol have been here since the beginning of the season and have a very special chemistry with the fans.
Lee Roberts knew the league. He played the 2019-2020 and 2021 seasons with Aguada. He is a military son, born in Seattle, lived in Alaska and fell in love and settled in Perth. When his second daughter was born in Uruguay, he made her a fan of Peñarol, according to what he told the leaders.
John Flowers was born in Maryland and shared a team on the DC Blue Devils with a certain Kevin Durant. On Wednesday, after the victory against Aguada, he climbed to the stands and got into the core of the fans to jump and celebrate.
Leonardo Carreno
John Flowers, a quality foreigner
“Many contractors are surprised that he has chosen to come to play in Uruguay,” said Gonzalez.
“They are two players who showed great commitment and that is what we want from the players, that they respect what Peñarol is. Winning is always a consequence, but to get there you have to have done many things and the main one is the demand for professionalism and dedication, something for which we are very grateful to the technical staff, the players and the teammates of the board”, expressed the manager.
Peñarol sold out 3,700 tickets to play, without visiting fans, and before the game the players unfurled a banner asking their fans not to sing songs of death, which caused Aguada to report him to the Penal Court last Friday.
“If you sing songs about murders or deaths, you didn’t understand anything about what it means to be a Peñarol fan. Peñarol is life, not death!”, Said the banner displayed by Salvador Zanotta, Nicolás Borsellino and Natanel Rodríguez. It is the first time that Peñarol institutionally, within a court, addresses this problem that generates part of its fans.
In January of this year, the board of directors had distributed leaflets among the fans in the run-up to a friendly against Barracas Central, however, the fans turned a deaf ear in the pre-season friendlies and in the first Apertura matches.
Instead, fans who went to basketball on Wednesday heeded the message. “None of the members of the board share those songs of death, we are convinced that Peñarol is the opposite, it is life, that message was given so that the fan enjoys basketball and if you are a Peñarol fan, protect him. The songs of death They do not represent Peñarol, glory represents us.Seeing 3,700 people cheering and filling the Palace has not happened for thirty-odd years. All this shows that it was a serious mistake to have dropped to basketball from the competition,” expressed in reference to the decision decreed in 1998 by José Pedro Damiani.
On May 17, Peñarol was sanctioned with a two-point penalty and six court closures for the 2022-2023 season for incidents in the match against Malvín.
“We are all very hurt by that ruling, I do not share it but I have to abide by it. I respect the authorities, but there are many people who also disagree with the ruling,” González explained.
The Mirasol director lamented that the incident was generated by Malvín and that President Sergio Somma argued “violently” with Judge Alejandro Sánchez Varela but that the sanction was carried out by Peñarol: “I think that The court should have investigated more what happened, a single interview was made to a judge by Zoom and the one who interviewed was the member of Malvín in the Court; that has to be reviewed, it is an error that cannot happen because we are left with a record when we are the team that makes the largest investment in security, We pay for the use of facial recognition cameras, we pay for spirometry controls, we carry out a communication campaign through networks, but 99% of Peñarol fans are left in the hands of some misplaced person doing some act of violence.
“Without all the money we invest in security, we could have a much larger budget. for the team, but that’s how Peñarol is, for a reason we fill a Palace and what moves moves. It is part of our picture, but we have to understand that You have to take care of this stubborn Peñarol”he added.
“I think the presence of Peñarol reactivated basketball, we managed to put together the training in a very short time and today we are in a position to generate double squads in several categories”. Behind the current success in the League there is a whole movement in youth that is in charge of Gonzalo Berretta. The project was thought to be successful at the top and growing from below, and now he will define the title of champion with Biguá.
