Ocampo, the ‘Sheep’ Hernández, Casimiro, Ponsarnau, Sakota, Schiller and Fisac. Seven coaches in just over two years. That is the troubled river of Zaragoza. The sports director, Muedra, left when Schiller was fired, for consistency, since he was the coach he put in and in whom he trusted and did not want to see his authority broken any further. In the end, a thousand laps to return to the origin, to a Fisac who has been one of the few who has found stability in recent times at Casademont. An intense coach who has taken a good hit in Gran Canaria. Sometimes technicians find their right place and time, or the opposite. “The protagonists are the ones who score the baskets. What I can influence is to tell them the truths in which I think. I pass it on to the player the same way and I’m not lying to him. They are the ones who have changed the mentality and the ones who have caused the team to win. It’s not a matter of the coach, I’m clear about it”, highlights the Segovian.
Ponsarnau returns tomorrow to the Aragonese track this time as a visitor, with Bilbao Basket. True to his serene and conciliatory spirit, he is not guided by any desire for revenge. “You go back to a place where you worked, I didn’t get things right, they went wrong. It is the life of the coach, I can go back, I have continued and I am in a place where I love to work, with a fantastic group, we continue to work on the wave ”, he summarizes in the preview of the game. “It is a place where it is very difficult for the coach to get things right, now there is a coach who has been successful. I have the utmost respect for the people who work there, I appreciate them, I don’t have to give an opinion on these things, what matters to me now is respect for my players and the team”.
The coach of the Maño team has praised the figure of Ponsarnau, who has highlighted that he is “one of the best Spanish coaches at the moment and in recent years”. “He is a person with a concept of work that I sometimes like to imitate and copy certain things because he has a great sense of reality, of doing things judiciously and I think that He is a person, not only on a sporting level but on a human level, endearing“, has underlined. Porfirio Fisac has assessed that Ponsarnau’s teams are characterized “by the confidence that the players have with him” and has pointed out that the Catalan coach is “one of those exemplary coaches when it comes to basketball”, something that he is demonstrating with Bilbao and with many teams.
For his part, the man from Tàrrega appreciates that Zaragoza now “is in good shape”, not only because of the last two victories, against Betis and Real Madrid, but also because of the match against Joventut in Badalona, ”in which they showed a good competitive level”. “They have found more inspiration, players, success and energy, and it is a team with quality; that makes them more dangerous, we have to do things very well if we want to compete”, added the coach of the ‘men in black’. As he analyzes, Jessup has taken a step forward and is their leading scorer, Radoncic and Hlinason are more comfortable in the game, Javi García has found the contribution and Yusta was not doing well and in the last game he was decisive. “We have to respect the 12 they have. I have had the pleasure of training Mara and Langarita, they have an impressive talent, we must have a lot of respect and attention”.
It has been a good positive week, after coming from victory against Fuenla and having all the troops, despite some small mishaps. “We are growing as a team, we have a proposal, what happens is that we also know that we are playing a competition that what we have shown is going well for us, we have to grow because the moment you stop, any team can beat you. We were in a negative dynamic, and having lost a game in Miribilla (against Baskonia) and we didn’t want it to be two, now we have this dynamic abroad, we try to change it, learn to be competitive abroad without our fans, although this time we are also going to have the public in favor”, he wields in reference to the 250 fans who will travel to the city of Pilar and the setbacks against Granada, Breogán and Tenerife at home.
In addition, Bilbao Basket reaches 600 games in ACB. “The victory would be a very good recognition to all the people who have made this story possible. For example, this pavilion (alluding to La Casilla, where Bilbao Basket has been exercising these days), many games of this journey have been played here, it is part of it, of a beautiful, endearing and exciting story. It is solid, where there have been super-successes, it has been in the LEB, it has risen again… many things to get back up that make the history of this club more consistent and strong, with this strength it has many years left”.
Fisac, for his part, has explained that he has always thought that with the truth he goes everywhere, although sometimes that truth hurts or can hurt him on a personal level, something that he says has happened to him on some occasions. The coach of the ‘rojillo’ group believes that the team has to continue with the degree of humility that it is showing because although it fights well it is still “far” from being a team as it likes, “solid and stable”. “I think we still have a lot to achieve and there are too many hints of certain selfishness within the group, something that on the other hand is normal due to the youth and ambition of the team and what we have to achieve is to become even more competitive” , has pointed.
Regarding this aspect, he has clarified that this degree of selfishness is not negative but rather positive in the sense that the players want to add to the group and that they are changing their mentality a bit. “When you are more drowned there are players who want to go out and pull the car and add but they did it in the wrong way,” he analyzed. The Fuenterrebollo coach believes that the two victories achieved in a row after the bad start to the competition mean that the players believe “a little more in themselves” and that this is good as long as it does not become overconfidence.
“We cannot forget where we are, at the bottom of the table, that we have a long way to go and that there is only one way to win here, with maximum effort and sacrifice, and if anyone believes more than what is That’s me, to tell you ”, he has warned. In this regard, he has added that he hopes that his players are not confused because Surne Bilbao is a better team than Casademont at the moment. “He has more victories, he is playing better and he has been solid for more games. They are showing on the track that they are superior. We have an important challenge to see if we can get closer to them ”, he assured. Fisac believes that the match against the Biscayan team will be difficult because they are a rival that plays well and that in the two competitions in which they are taking part they are doing “a very good job” with players who are performing “at a very good level”. One of the aspects that he considers key to the luck of the match is the pace of play set in Bilbao by his two point guards, Hakanson and Radicevic, and who manage to make it “very stable”.
“They play at two very important rhythms. I think that controlling the pace is going to be very important because they have the ability to play both at an offensive transition pace and at a static one with very clear ideas and the ability to score easily. They have a very high scoring power and right now they are in high percentages. We know that you have to work very well defensively to reduce that and that they don’t shoot so comfortably ”, he analyzed.