On the way to the deepest part of the ocean, Barça has found its own Aquaman, capable of rescuing it and returning it to the surface. A hero of the house, moreover, born in Gavà and with a heart as much of a Barcelona fan as anyone. An elite coach who has been able to radically change the face of the Barça team in just one month, once again turning it into a fearsome rival for anyone and a contender for everything. He is 53 years old, his name is Xavi Pascual, and if he continues without making many mistakes they will have to build a statue of him.
The numbers, especially in basketball, don’t lie. And those of Barça, this season, have little comparison. On November 9, Joan Peñarroya’s time on the Barça bench came to an end. In the morning, his team fell with a crash in Fontajau against Bàsquet Girona (96-78), in the umpteenth display of apathy from a squad that seemed to have given up too soon. At 7:03 p.m. his dismissal was announced. In the 15 games that the Egarense coached this season, his team won 8 and lost 7, some especially hurtful – Zalgiris, Lleida and Girona –, conceding 87.6 points on average. If we leave aside the three interim games with Óscar Orellana (which ended with great success, by the way) while Barça closed the hiring of the new coach, in the nine games in which Pascual has sat on the bench, the improvement in performance, starting with the defense, has been evident, including eight consecutive victories and the co-leadership of the Euroleague after the ecstasy against Baskonia. Precisely, until that duel, which with three overtimes distorts any figure, the Blaugrana conceded 72.3 points per duel.
The first thing
Pascual wanted to involve all the players and focused on Norris and Willy Hernangómez
At this point, the big question every basketball fan asks is how on earth Pascual has been able to transform his team in this drastic way. And the answer is not easy at all. After consulting several sources with knowledge of what is happening in the locker room, the conclusion has a lot to do with their methodology, which they describe as “surgical”, when preparing for games and their wide range of solutions. This is how he has managed to reconnect the players.
The story begins during the days prior to his hiring, when Pascual makes an in-depth analysis of the squad and asks the club for reinforcements to improve it. Given Barça’s precarious economic situation, that door will close soon. Without the possibility of signing, the coach is very clear that he needs to involve all the players he has available, aware that in order to face two competitions as long and demanding as the Endesa League and the Euroleague, he cannot further shorten an already short squad. It has always been like this during his career, when he faces a project he analyzes everything, breaks it down and then begins to put it back together based on his interests. At this point, having completed the analysis, there are two names that focused all your attention for different reasons. The first was Miles Norris, who was having a residual role until his arrival. The coach wanted to see with his own eyes the true capabilities of the San Francisco power forward, with the intention of him contributing more to the team, especially thinking about the Endesa League. His 9 points and 8 rebounds last Sunday in Manresa confirm that his intuition is on the right track. He is a useful player.
The method
Pascual faces the games with three different plans and with that “surgical” methodology he has managed to convince the players and reconnect them
The second name that worried Pascual had more substance. It was none other than Willy Hernangómez, whose obvious limitations when it came to defending caused many to question his role with the new coach. Far from fighting against windmills, aware that the Madrid native has the highest contract in the squad and that there was no possibility of an exit, Pascual decided to add him to the cause. He knew he couldn’t turn him into a great defender, so he made a couple of adjustments to at least make him a little better, but he focused his efforts on offense. He began to convince the squad that they had to give him the ball more, that he has the quality to contribute a lot to the team, and in a few weeks he has achieved it. Hernangómez now feels much more committed to the team, contributing more in attack and his teammates no longer reproach him for as many things as before. It’s one more.
But Pascual’s greatest contribution so far comes when preparing for games. It is the way in which he has managed to straighten the course and involve his players, convince them. Some even define him as an “engineer”, due to his studies. It is surgical when designing the best way to attack and defend against each rival. It prepares up to three alternatives for each encounter, but is then able to change on the fly. In their inner circles, several players have already admitted that this way of working, having so many tools, gives them enormous confidence. They have the feeling of jumping onto the court knowing everything their rival can do and all the ways to counter their weapons. How to defend plays and how to attack their defenses. It has a variant for each game situation. The players feel that their coach has everything under control.
Pascual, on the Palau bench
And, after several weeks, the staff begins to make it public. “We have many plans prepared, we have three plans for each game and that allows us to be versatile in a game,” Brizuela pointed out recently. “We knew that we all had to take a step forward. We followed the game plan perfectly and defended very well,” Will Clyburn congratulated himself after Barcelona’s victory in Paris.
As the numbers show, one of the biggest improvements that Barça has experienced has come in the defensive aspect. The demand in this aspect until Pascual’s arrival was not good, because the focus was basically on attack and that made the competitive tension impossible to maintain. Now, the demand is maximum, and not only physical, the mental aspect plays a fundamental role. Pascual requires his players to be very focused, attentive to what the opponent can do to execute the solutions that he has provided them. To achieve all this, Pascual was very clear that he had to put order in all aspects of the team. And the respect that his career gives him has made everything easier. Many of the decisions made by his predecessors were questioned by the locker room and they did not have the authority to stop it. Just arriving, in one of his first talks with the players, Pascual reported that behind each tactical change he was going to institute, behind each match plan, there were many hours of work by the coaching staff and that nothing was going to be questioned. That if anyone had something to say, or a suggestion to make, they should do it privately, in their office, and that they would then make their decisions, but that the nonsense was over and that their decisions were not going to be questioned. Everyone had to go to one. The revolution in the Palau was already a fact. And the results support it.
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The keys to change
1
Previous analysis. Given the impossibility of reinforcing the team, Pascual was clear that he could not make the squad shorter than it already was. Everyone had to be involved.
2
Two main cases. Especially for the Endesa League, the coach set out to recover Norris and he is achieving it. Aware of his defensive limitations, with Willy Hernangómez he has convinced the rest of the squad that they should give him the ball more in attack. With this he has managed to make the Madrid native more committed and his teammates to trust him more.
3
Party plans. One of the points that the players have been most grateful for, privately and publicly, is that they now face the games with much more confidence thanks to Pascual’s surgical preparation. There are three plans for each match depending on what may happen and the players know what to do at all times on both sides of the court.
4
I respect. Peñarroya’s decisions were questioned, Pascual made it clear on the first day that behind each tactical change there were many hours of work and what the coach says is no longer in doubt.
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