The capacity for suffering takes Barça one step away from glory

No one said it was going to be easy but it was impossible to imagine that Barça had to suffer as he did this Friday to get into the final of the Euroleague Final Four. The Barça team will fight on Sunday (8.30pm) for the third continental title in its history after those of 2003 and 2010 after beating the Armani Milan after an agonizing semifinal match, resolved with a six-meter shot from Cory Higgins in the absence of eight tenths for the conclusion. Ahead you will have a Anadolu efes who also suffered a great deal to bend the CSKA Moscow, who had a triple to win after going down 21 points in the third quarter.

The final shot of Higgins put the rubric to a cardiac game, in which the Barça He started very well (51-42 at halftime) but in which life was complicated a lot because of a bad third quarter. Driven by the points of the American shooting guard Kevin Punter (23), the Armani milan He flipped the match around like a sock and set off all the alarms in the Barça when he was eight points up (61-69) with twelve minutes to go. It was a critical moment for the team of Sarunas Jasikevicius, which nevertheless drew strength from weakness and, from the hand of a great Nick calathes, returned to the game to end up deciding in that magical final action of Higgins.







Higgins' basket worth a final

The bad news for him Barça It was the injury to the Greek point guard, who after stepping on a rival had to limp away with three and a half minutes remaining. We will have to pray, but it seems difficult that Calathes can play the final on Sunday.

Eleven years had to pass for the Barça go back to the end of the Euroleague. On that occasion, Barça signed one of the brightest pages in its history as the team from Xavi Pascual swept the Olympiacos in the final in Paris and achieved the second continental crown of the Barça basketball.

Reaching the final has been synonymous with success for Barça since the new Euroleague started in 2001. In those twenty years, Barça has played seven Final Four and in the two in which he reached the final he ended up taking the title. The first, unforgettable, was the one lived at the Palau Sant Jordi in 2003.

With the pass to the final of this Final Four in Cologne, Barça definitely leaves behind the crossing in the desert which has been the last seven years. From the Milan Final Four 2014 The Catalans had not returned to the great continental basketball event, nor had they managed to shine at the national level, chaining one failed project after another. A multitude of players and three different coaches passed through Barça (Georgios bartzokas, Sito Alonso Y Svetislav Pesic) but the most that was achieved was a Copa del Rey.

The stones of the current resurrection began to be laid in the summer of 2019, when the club invested heavily in basketball to bring in top-level players such as Nikola Mirotic, Cory Higgins, Brandon davies Y Alex Abrines. In the first year the results improved but the successes did not come. One piece was missing and that one landed last summer in the form of the return of one of the great idols of the section, Sarunas Jasikevicius, now to lead from the bench. The charisma of Saras and her technical teaching have endowed an extraordinary staff with soul, which now not only draws on talent but also effort, courage and collective work. The good defense displayed throughout the season, the best in the Euroleague and in the Endesa League, appeared in the last quarter of yesterday’s match to qualify Barça for the grand final in Cologne.

Whatever happens in the east end Barça it is already on another level. This season he has already won the Copa del Rey, has finished second in the regular phase of the Endesa League and is in the final of the top continental competition eleven years later. And all this he has done showing a great capacity to overcome all adversities, such as temporary absences from Mirotic for a personal problem and Davies, Higgins Y Claver for different injuries.

A capacity that re-emerged yesterday when things looked worse and that allowed the Barça to be one step away from glory.

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