By Stefan Acevski / info@eurohoops.net
Real Madrid’s coach Pedro Martinez spoke before the team’s first training session in Abu Dhabi, where the team is preparing for its debut against Dubai Basketball in the EuroLeague Super Cup semifinals, which will take place this Friday at 19:00 CEST.
The Madrid coach wanted to focus on the present and avoid anticipating the upcoming challenges of the season.
“I know how the competition system works and also what the expectations are for a club like Real Madrid. I prefer to do things without thinking too much in the medium term and stay focused on the present, which right now is trying to make the best possible Super Cup. Then, we will focus on the start of the EuroLeague and let our work take us where it has to without putting more pressure on ourselves than we intrinsically already have as professional athletes.”
Martinez acknowledged that uncertainty is one of the main factors before a tournament of this nature, especially being the first official games of the season.
“It’s hard to say because there is a lot of uncertainty about us right now, but we also have a lot about the opponent. We haven’t seen them play against very strong teams and we don’t know exactly what their strategy will be. In these early competitions, you go a little blind. We are trying to focus more on what depends on us rather than the opponent.”
The coach also highlighted the added difficulty of facing a team led by a new coach.
“We know all the players, but the coach is new, and we don’t know exactly what we will encounter. It’s always very important to do the basics of the game as well as possible, rebound, select shots well, not have a high number of turnovers, and be solid in defensive rebounding.”
One of the questions Pedro Martinez was asked was the comparison with Valencia Basket from the previous season, especially with the level the team showed in the last months of competition. The coach asked for patience and reminded that a team’s evolution takes time.
“There’s a lot of comparison with last year’s Valencia from the final months of competition when we played the Final Four and when we were league champions. What should be compared is the Valencia Basket from the first months, and that one, surely, wasn’t as fun or as well-rounded as it was in the last ones. What is very important is to work, be patient, and keep improving.”
In this sense, the coach believes that the team’s growth should be gradual and that it’s unrealistic to expect all mechanisms to work perfectly from the start.
“If you keep improving, there will always be a time when you will have a high competitive level. Expecting that to be from the first day and for everything to go perfectly, for all players to understand everything, for everyone to adapt, is what we would like to happen, but it surely won’t be that fast.”
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