It could not be. Real Madrid was very close but Alberto Abalde’s triple final did not enter and said goodbye, proudly and competing until the end, of a Euroleague that, on the general plane, has been very disappointing for the white team. That The regular phase (20-14) ended seventh, in negative away from home (7-10) and forced a tremendous final sprint (six victories in the last six games) to hold on to the play play in. There, a defeat with the Paris in the Movistar Arena ended up being decisive: it did not mean the elimination but the ticket to the second play in, against Bayern and eighth place.
That triumph assured the rooms but in a critical position, since the last position and against the leader of the regular phase, the Olympiacos. And without court factor, of course. Never, in this format, the eighth has been able against the leader, a rule that Madrid has not been able to break although has been at a level close to that of the Greek team if the first game is excluded. He has had very good moments in the qualifiers, others to complain about the referees (in the second game, especially) but finally has fallen. And it doesn’t seem accident: Six games against Olympiacos this season and five losses.
After three years in the final (one victory and two losses), Real Madrid falls from the Final Four and continues without being able to arrive four years in a row to the final eventthe Final to four. The only ones who have achieved something like that, truly difficult, are CSKA, Fenerbahçe, Baskonia and Olympiacos himself.
ATTENTION CEIVED TO THE LEAGUE
The elimination keeps Real Madrid without any title this season, something truly strange for a team that entered a real golden age with the arrival of Pablo Laso in the summer of 2011. This Madrid 2024-25, in Cycle change after the departure of the Rudy, Sergio, Causeur, Poirier and YabuseleHe started with defeat in the final of the Super Cup: he won Barcelona in the semifinals but could not later with the Unicaja (90-80), the same rival who knocked him down a few months later in the Cup final (93-79). The Chus Mateo team did not suffer against Manresa and Gran Canaria, but crashed in the second part of the final against a Unicaja that played an almost perfect game. Zero of two and, now, elimination in Euroleague: nothing in the three titles that have already been resolved.
The League remains, where the white team is very favoritealso with a playoff format that minimizes surprises and gives advantage to its talent peak and its closet fund. The field advantage seems very close to being tied (three advantage games over the second) For a team that has been rewarded, after ugly ups and downs at the start, and is right now sweeping the domestic competition: it has 17 victories in a row and does not lose since it fell through a point in Valencia (85-84) just before Christmas.
The Endesa League is, therefore, a obligation. More than ever for Avoid a year without titles. A situation that is not lived in Real Madrid since the arrival of Laso. The first great success of Vitoriano, the 2012 Cup, opened a stretch full of successes. The last time something like that happened, in the negative, was in 2010-11, the season that began with Ettore Messina and ended with Lele Molin on the bench. The disaster began with a horrible defeat in the semifinals of the Super Cup (89-55) against a Barça that at that time had food and that won that title and the cup, with a final in which Madrid was imposed again on Madrid, in addition to the Palace (60-68). The Barca team completed the Triplet national with a league in which he defeated the title to Bilbao Basket, who had given the bell in semifinals against a Real Madrid already disrepted And that he had his best moment with the ticket for the Final Four del Sant Jordi: he surpassed in the quarterfinals Valencia Basket (3-2) but later crashed, in the semifinals, against the MacCabi (82-63). A 0/4 in titles that now lengthens its shadow, although the league bullet is left.
The 2011-12 season, with that cup, broke A four-year curse in white, since the 2006-07 League. Four courses (2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11) In which, in full identity crisis, Real Madrid crashed again and again before riding, already with Laso and with a core of unrepeatable players, one of the most dominant projects in the history of European basketball. But between the 2007 League and the 2012 Cup, nothing.
A strange situation in May
It is not even normal for Madrid to arrive in a situation of so much demand to May. Since that 2011-12 season it has never been seen with the current 0/3 and It has always reached the ACB playoffs with some title (or more than one, many times) in the bag. In fact, between 2012 and 2023, he won nine Super Cups (six of them in a row) and started the course with a first (although small, is the least of the four titles) Alegría. In Cup, and after that 19-year-old curse (from 1993 to 2012) he has won seven and four in a row (2014-17). And in the League it started in 2013 and added that and six more. AND the only time since the summer of 2011 that stayed seco In Super Cup and Cup, won the 2017-18 Euroleaguethe explosion of Luka Doncic. Before he had taken that of 2015 (the first since 1995) and then won the 2023, that of the comeback to the party and the basket of Llull.
In that 2017-18 course, Gran Canaria surprised him in the semifinals of a Super Cup that ended up winning Valencia Basket and Barça defeated her in the Cup final (92-90). But then The ecstasy of the Euroleague and the League title arrived after defeating Baskonia in the final. Real Madrid, therefore, carries fourteen years (2010-11) without staying at titlessomething that is at risk now, and had been since that year without starting with three punctures In Super Cup, Cup and Euroleague. This is now, in almost unknown territory and forced to put the five senses in the Endesa League.
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