By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
For the first time since the 2020-21 season, Real Madrid won’t contend for the EuroLeague title in the Final Four. Chus Mateo’s team, which entered this year’s Playoffs through the Play-In tournament victory over Bayern Munich, surrendered 3-1 to Olympiacos.
Chus Mateo reflected on getting just a few inches away from forcing Game 5. “We gave our lives, and we had the shot to win it. And in basketball, when you have the shot to win, you know what it means, especially against a team like Olympiacos, with whom we have a clear experience,” he commented.
“Sometimes it goes in, and sometimes it doesn’t. Alberto Abalde made a good decision: he had an open shot, and it was a decision to win, to bring back the series to Athens,” Mateo added.
Real Madrid‘s head coach also stressed out that, considering the powerhouse he’s coaching, they can’t “self-satisfy themselves”, expressing the now-impossible wish of having played in Abu Dhabi. “That’s not enough for us, we would have liked to be in the Final Four, without any doubts,” he said.
“[We wanted to] compete until the last moment to be champions. But I feel very proud of the effort that once again we have shown as a team. I’m proud of the people I have in the locker room, of how they fight. I wanna give them once again the value they have.”
Ultimately, the Spanish tactician also gave his flowers to Olympiacos. “They are a tremendous team. Tonight, they had crazy shots by [Sasha] Vezenkov or [Evan] Fournier. [Kostas] Papanikolaou, who didn’t appear like himself during the series, tonight had four great three-pointers in crucial moments.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Eurokinissi