FCBARCELONA.CAT

22.02.2010 12:05

The fourth consecutive trophy

Roger Bogunyà

Regal Barça are on a fantastic run of form and results that has seen them win the last four competitions they have taken part in: ACB league, Catalan league, ACB Super Cup and Kings Cup. The Euroleague in May was the only one that got away.

Barça won the ACB league with Andersen, Ilyasova and Santiago all playing a leading role. After the summer, coach Xavi Pascual proved that the changes introduced – players like Ricky, Mickeal, Morris, Lorbek and Ndong – had not affected the team’s winning ways. Quite the opposite as first the Catalan League and the Super Cup came to Barcelona. However, there was still the doubt as to whether the team would respond to the really big occasions.

The biggest winning margin

The Kings Cup final has dispelled any such doubts. The quarter and semi-finals were the kind of games where you just have to grind out a result but the final itself was another matter altogether with the final result more or less beyond doubt from the third quarter onwards. The eventual winning margin of 19 points is the biggest since the competition changed to the current format, and could have been even bigger as the team was winning by 27 points at one stage. Young coach Xavi Pascual (he’s 37) has already won the three possible trophies in domestic basketball.

Real Madrid, again

The Real Madrid players must be having nightmares about Regal Barça. The two sides have met three times already this season and all three have ended in Barça’s favour. The first game was in the ACB Super Cup which saw the most evenly balanced contest of the three (86-82). The second game ended in a stunning 57-79 victory in Real Madrid’s Vistalegre pavilion.

A team effort

Regal Barça’s triumph in the Kings Cup was clearly a team effort. Barça’s 12 players all scored at least one point, something not often seen in modern basketball. In the other six games of the tournament no other team managed to equal this small yet significant achievement.