FC Barcelona lost in a pathetic way against Valencia Basket
The impossible happened. The Euroleague title contender, FC Barcelona just got beaten by the Eurocup team of Valencia Basket. This result shouldn’t have been such a huge surprise if the encounter would have been balanced. But it wasn’t at all.
Valencia Basket came to Barcelona without 5 key players like Mike Tobey, Nenad Dimitrijevic, Victor Claver, Louis Labeyrie and Martin Hermannsson. Actually, the Taronja team had only 4 experienced players, Bojan Dubljevic, Sam Van Rossom, Klemen Prepelic and Jasiel Rivero. Then, a lot of Spanish young promising fellows like Xavi Lopez-Arostegui, Jaime Pradilla and Josep Puerto.
The difference between the rosters was huge, but the motivation was much higher from Valencia Basket. They practically had almost no chance but they did the miracle. The same Barca that destroyed Baskonia in the Euroleague a couple of days ago, was now a lazy and embarrassing team against Valencia. They underestimated the opponents and I am sure that the focus was on the next Euroleague game against CSKA Moscow.
Another argument that had to be in favor of the Blaugrana squad was the fact that Valencia had a difficult road win at Virtus Bologna last week, while Barca played at home that easy game vs. Baskonia. But even so, Valencia Basket looked more fresh and coherent than the host team. An unbelievable win that shows once again the high level of the home-grown players of Valencia Basket.
Image credit: EuroLeague
Gratian Cormos is a Romanian life coach, journalist, book writer and mentor currently living in Barcelona, Spain. You can buy his book “How to bet on basketball” ordering by e-mail at: gratian_cormos@yahoo.com
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