Euroleague: Real Madrid, for the miracle of Belgrade: welcome to hell

Welcome to Hell. There is no other reading. There is no other way. Real Madrid has before it one of the toughest battles that can take place on the ‘Old Continent’. A hypothetical pass to the Final Four of the Euroleague would only come from overturning the 0-2 loss with which they arrive in Belgrade. Nobody has. And in front is Partizan. Its 20,000 souls that will take over the Stark Arena and heat up the battle since the last WiZink clash. “Our heroes,” they said when they arrived at Nikola Tesla Airport. The fight in Goya is a stain that will not be forgotten… although it does not have to influence the day.

“It’s a situation that occurs in a limit match. Yes, Llull commits an irregular action and Punter is excessively excited, but he should not overanalyze himself. The Final Four is played and nobody hates anyone. In fact, in Serbia Real Madrid is considered great. There is immense respect for Zeljko Obradovic,” Predrag Saric, a Serbian sports journalist, tells MARCA.

the battle of belgrade

Although there are ashes from that day in Goya. First, sports. Partizán, which placidly dominated the second game in Madrid, lost its main strongholds. Kevin Punter and Mathias Lessort. Yes, Dante Exum will be there, as confirmed by Zeljko Obradovic: “He insists on forcing to help the team.” Real Madrid, Guerschon Yabusele and especially Gaby Deck, heroic in the first game. Without them, two pillars that have to work: defense and inside game.

It creates a situation where Belgrade is already hell. He received Real Madrid with more temperatures than the predictions, sun and… different opinions. “I’m a Red Star fan, but I’m clear: I don’t want Madrid to win,” he told MARCA Zarko, one of the managers of the hotel in the Serbian capital where the special envoys of the leading newspaper stay. “Even if you don’t like sports, we all watch the news. We know what happened,” he adds.

I am a fan of Red Star, but here we are clear: we do not want Real Madrid to win

Zarko

To the Serbian capital, those of Chus Mateo arrive with that obligation to win. Yes, they can remember. In the pavilion of the ‘white city’, Real Madrid already knows what it means to make history. won the Euroleague 2018 at Fenerbahçe with an exhibition by Luka Doncic and Fabien Causeur. Although there he lost the last one, against Efes. But there is Partizan, a religion. “There’s no way they’re going to want to go there,” said Efes star Will Clyburn. “I hope they go in with the National Guard,” said Dylan Ennis, a player who has passed through Spain and Serbia. Although from Madrid nothing more than sports is taken into account. “We only think about basketball,” explained Chus Mateo in the press room.

The environment is on the table, but is it reality? “Not so much. The public will bring sporting tension, right now Belgrade is a perfectly safe city to host matches. I think Madrid is wrong to ask for even more security,” Saric says.

Against the magician Obradovic

In strictly sporting terms, Real Madrid is facing a difficult moment in the series. His three almost consecutive defeats against Partizán -two in the Playoffs and the one in the regular season- are summed up in bad outside shooting cards (37.5%, 31.8% and 34.8%), the energy of Partizan and decisive factors like Punter’s three-pointer badly defended in the first of the series, a poor approach in the second or one in the regular season in which Tavares’s fouls and excessive arbitration caseism in the regular season limited Madrid.

Obradovic, king of Europe, has it where he wanted it. For the machada, Madrid recovers Tavares. “The tie is marked because our fives have been absent at some point. Tavares is better and changes things”, confessed Mateo. His contribution is not in question, and before Partizán he left samples of his worth with 12 points in the first game.

But there is the Zeljko effect. “He is the MVP of the Euroleague. You analyze how the team changed despite the injuries and that commitment so that if one does not shine, another does … it is impressive. He knows how to make a team have chemistry,” Saric explains. “He falls in love with everyone. From Serbia, other ex-Yugoslav republics and anywhere,” he adds to MARCA.

Obradovic is the MVP of the Euroleague

Predrag Saric

Tension, 20,000 rumbling souls and a final. Madrid already knows what they are up against. Ever since he landed in the Nikola Tesla on Monday afternoon, his mind has only been on one thing. That it is not his last night in one of the capitals of basketball.