Real Madrid Basketball: Christmas Tournament History – El Retrovisor

Years ago, as often happens now, during the “so-important” Christmas holidays, most sports competitions were suspended, so we had few interesting events left in our bedroom. One of them, of course, was the famous International Christmas Basketball Tournament, organized every year by Real Madrid, and which all fans of this sport, and even more so if we were merengones, celebrated with real enthusiasm.

For a few days, coinciding even with December 25, four great teams, both European and American, met in the legendary pavilion of the Ciudad Deportiva of the white club to decide which of them would take home such a prestigious and long-awaited trophy. As Carlos Sevillano, legendary point guard and captain of Real Madrid, recalled in an interview with the newspaper “ABC”: “It was incredible, we faced players who were often unknown, but of great quality. Sabonis, Petrovic, Marciulonis, George Karl passed through the Christmas Tournament…

Needless to say, the host team, that is, Real Madrid, seemed to have the measure of the tournament that it organized itself. It is enough to look carefully at the record to be able to verify that there was no year in which he did not keep it. In fact, for example, from 1966, when the first edition was held, and until 2004, the year in which this exciting Christmas competition was closed, Madrid won the tournament no less than 26 times!, so they gave their rivals few options. And great teams attended, among which curiously were the national teams of the USSR – see Soviet Union or, better yet, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which sounds more bombastic – and Yugoslavia, which at that time were breaking the cord in basketball. Well, not even with those!
Well, we must also point out in favor of Real Madrid basketball that, during those golden decades of the 60s, 70s and 80s, it had fantastic players, who made the team “almost” invincible. There were, for example, Sevillano, Emiliano, Luyk, Brabender, Rullán, Corbalán, Iturriaga, Fernando Martín, Petrovic… and many others who, at least those long-ago Christmases, gave us entertainment and a lot of passion.

Drazen Petrovic, already as a Real Madrid player, in the 1988 edition of the tournament. Photo: ABC

Text included in the book The Rearview Mirror. An emotional walk down memory lane (Poe’s Eye, 2019).