After a difficult qualification for the semi-finals, Barça had to wait until after eleven at night to find out their rival. When more than one bet on Unicaja, Tenerife emerged to ring the bell and meet with Grimau’s team. Although the precedents are favorable to the Blaugrana, who have won the two league duels of the season (94-83 and 90-83), no one is unaware that Vidorreta’s team is capable of posing all the problems in the world any rival.
The direction of play
Roger Grimau was proud and satisfied after defeating Baxi Manresa. “We have been constant,” he defended. But the truth is that during many moments of the duel he was infected by the infernal pace that Pedro Martínez’s team imposes and he missed a game director who would take the baton and set the pace.
Satoransky adorned his statistics with five recoveries, the Czech always tireless in defensive tasks, but he completed one of his worst games of the course. He could not take advantage of his physical superiority and in attack he ended up unhinged. Jokubaitis was up to the task, always a dagger in attack, but he is still not capable of dominating a game with the ball.
If you want to reach the final, against Tenerife it seems almost mandatory that you prevail in this section and be able to set the pace that interests you most depending on the moment of the match. With Huertas and Fittipaldo making play creation difficult, the task will be titanic to win the tactical battle.
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Control the rebound
One of the main reasons that explains Barça’s victory against Baxi Manresa, as confirmed by Roger Grimau himself, was that the Blaugrana knew how to control the rebound against the most dangerous team of the season in this section. Pedro Martínez’s team has the most rebounds in the entire Endesa League, almost forty per game (38.59), and against Barça it was much lower: 31 catches compared to 44.
Against Tenerife everything will be different, since the Canary Islands are the worst team in the League in rebounding (31.3), so mastering this statistic will mean taking the first step towards Sunday’s grand final.
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Annotation is everyone’s business
Against Manresa, Barça scored 102 points, figures that seem difficult to repeat in a Copa del Rey semi-final. But beyond that figure, it is worth highlighting that of the eleven players that Roger Grimau used, ten contributed with at least two points. Only Abrines, who still has games left to get into the rhythm of the competition, was left without scoring in almost nine minutes on the court.
Parker, Laprovittola, Hernangómez and Vesely took the spotlight, as usual, but no less important for the Barça triumph were the moments of inspiration from luxury secondary players like Oscar da Silva or Joel Parra.
To defeat them and reach the final, Barça will have to once again be supportive in the scoring department and not leave all the weight on a couple of their stars.
The history
History usually serves little purpose when it comes to jumping onto the track, but it helps explain many things.
To begin with, in the last five Copas del Rey, Barça has only found two ways out: either win, which it has achieved in three of those editions, or fall at the first time, in the quarterfinals, as happened last year in Badalona. .
For its part, Tenerife does not have a very brilliant record in the Cup. It has never won it and its greatest feat came last year, reaching the final in Badalona and losing to Unicaja. But Vidorreta’s team has more lives than a cat and with its presence in the semifinals it has once again confirmed that it should be counted on.
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2024-02-17 10:00:00
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