Barça is still in the initial phase of digest a very hard defeatof those that mark you for a while, even that can condition a project. A great opportunity slipped through his fingers., that of getting into his second European final in a row when he was the clear favorite, and it escaped him against Real Madrid. Both the coach, Sarunas Jasikevicius, and the captain, Pierre Oriola, analyzed the situation while being critical and without shirking responsibilities.
“I repeat it again, we received 52 points in the second half. I don’t know if this team needs another coachor some coach to not concede those 52 points when the end is so close”, assures Jasikevicius this Friday, before training to prepare the duel for third place against Olympiacos.
Saras says they are repeat offenders: “It is not the first time that it happens, but we will continue looking for things to improve. We have staff who are very involved and we spend many hours looking at things. Something is sure I’m not going to take responsibility. If I find anything, I’ll tell you right away. The problem of this team is the same for a year and a half: the games that we cannot ‘kill’. Where can I help you to solve the matches and the qualifiers? I haven’t found the answer yet. Sport is cruel, you have to ‘kill’ the opponent. What I ask in these situations is not to give things away, and in basketball that means not giving layups and counterattacks, shutting down the rebound when you just need to put your body in, not getting lost… Not doing those things are gifts for your rival. And these big tournaments are usually decided by gifts, the one who puts in the most easy points wins. Y Madrid scored an incredible number of easy points in the second half”.
Oriola agreed with his coach about the killer instinct: “We didn’t have it against Madrid and we didn’t have it on many other occasions either. Eight years ago in Milan they beat us by 40 points in a semi-final and that was one more reason that had to serve as an incentive to try to ‘kill’ them in the second half and it wasn’t like that. It’s a big blow, the rival was better than us in the small details. We want to go home and make a clean slate. Now the goal is to win the League in the next five weeks. You have to recover playing good games and doing a good job. We can no longer go back, only the present remains”.