In basketball and in any sport you can’t always win. And if not, ask Chus Mateo’s Real Madrid, a team that had very bad habits for its fans. It is precisely the lack of victories in Europe that has affected the figure of the Madrid coach and many Real Madrid fans are already wondering if a change of course is necessary or not.
To explain this decline in Real Madrid basketball we have to look back at February 18. That day, the white team beat Roger Grimau’s Barcelona in the Copa del Rey played at the Martín Carpena in Málaga and everyone promised them very happy. The Madridistas thought that winning their 29th cup title was going to make them go up, but the reality is that after that victory everything has started to get extremely complicated.
Madrid no longer wins the matches it plays in the ACB League and the Euroleague so easily; for the first time this season, it has accumulated three consecutive defeats, something very rarely seen in the history of the white club and which suggests that something happens inside that locker room. The teams that defeated the white team in this period of time have been Olimpia Milano (81-76), Panathinaikos (86-97) and Fenerbahçe (79-89).
As seen on the hardwood, Real Madrid’s problems are quite evident. There is no longer a trace of that joy, that concentration and that confidence that the Madrid team showed in the Copa del Rey. “We have lost a bit of energy after winning the Cup. We have lowered that energy, probably due to two objectives achieved, the two calendar titles that we have won have made us lower that pressure,” Mateo commented recently.
In this way, there have been many questions that have arisen from the Madrid environment. Bad management? Have too many forces been spent on a stretch of the season that is not so decisive? Has Madrid gotten into the habit of winning day in and day out? To know if these unknowns persist or not over time, we will have to see how the white team reacts. For the moment, Madrid won with more suffering than expected against Lenovo Tenerife (80-78)
Mario Hezonja in action against Jaime Fernández at Real Madrid – Lenovo TenerifeEFE
What is clear is that Real Madrid is going through a rough patch that could be understood as something normal. The seasons are becoming more and more exhausting and the white team has become accustomed to playing three games a week. Next up for Chus Mateo’s team are the matches against Virtus Bologna (03/15), Unicaja (03/17), Alba Berlin (03/19) and Partizan Belgrade (03/21).
In short, four games in just six days that will help us find out if this downturn has been a simple slump in results or if Real Madrid is really bad and needs a change on its bench. What you have to do is stay calm.
A dangerous precedent
Back in the 2013/2014 season, and with Pablo Laso still on the Madrid bench, something similar happened to Real Madrid to what is happening today. That year, the white team seemed invincible. They had added 31 consecutive victories, but the Euroleague loss against Maccabi in Milan and the League against Barça in the Palau… left Madrid very shaken.
That is exactly what Chus Mateo does not want. If his figure is already beginning to be questioned… continuing to lose games can finish him off. Nervousness and uncertainty are beginning to flourish and that is a bad thing.
2024-03-11 05:48:49
#alarming #setback #Real #Madrid #basketball #Chus #Mateo #ropes
