Madrid bitter Marc Gasol’s return to the ACB

The Endesa League opened last night with a spectacular confrontation. On one side of the pitch, Girona, a recently promoted player who was returning to the elite with a bell-ringing reinforcement, Marc Gasol. In the other, Real Madrid, current champion of the tournament and winner of the Super Cup last Sunday. The Municipal Pavilion of Fontajau was the scene of the reappearance (14 years later) of the pivot in an ACB match, although for this the rules had to be changed so that the Catalan club could register him. Until now the figure of the president-player was not allowed, but the bet of the pivot, who at 37 years old decided to close his stage in the NBA to fulfill the dream of promoting his team to the highest category of Spanish basketball, was well worth a adaptation of the regulations. It was an emotional return, like that of Aíto García Reneses, who at 75 years of age celebrates half a century on the bench with more than 2,000 games of his own.

But all this was insufficient against the Madrid team, who knew how to recover from a poor start to the game and hammered their rival from the outside, with a devastating 18/32 from the triple, with a special mention for Mario Hezonja, the best of his team , with 23 points (5/7 from the line of three) and 7 rebounds. Real Madrid withstood all the arreones from Girona and with good streaks of triples managed to live a final stretch without stress.