The season, in 48 hours. Casademont Zaragoza will play this week its presence in the final phase of the Champions League, in a double European match that will measure him against the Italian Dinamo Sassari and the Czech Nymburk at the Príncipe Felipe pavilion. The Aragonese team needs to add victory in their two commitments, after the disgrace endured in Germany last Wednesday, on the Brose Bamberg court (117-76). So, the Zaragoza team was a hesitant and brittle bloc, broken, decomposed, desolate, without a soul, without arguments, without a solvent collective proposal. In fact, he completed his worst performance of the current season, especially due to his indolent attitude in the containment work: he conceded up to 117 points in 40 minutes of play, an unattainable record for a squad with the highest aspirations in the continental championship.
Casademont remains the leader of Group L, although with hardly any margin for error on their way to the final phase of the tournament, a Final to Eight set for the first week of May (from 5 to 9) and whose venue, yet to be determined, will be announced once all the classified teams are known. Despite currently lining up at the top of the table (Dinamo Sassari and Nymburk have one game less), if the Aragonese team is not able to carry out their next two games, both in the Príncipe Felipe pavilion, then they will drastically compromise its continuity in the competition.
In this way, the second round of the Champions League consists of four groups, with four teams each, who face each other in a round trip format – six games in total. The first two of each group will participate in the final phase, which will bring together the eight best teams in the tournament.
The Casademont aspires to everything to the maximum continental competition, even more so when it is the only grip to hold on this season. In fact, the ‘play off’ of the Endesa League already seems an unapproachable challenge, after having chained three consecutive defeats –Joventut de Badalona (95-100), Barcelona (107-88) and Estudiantes (104-113) – who have halted the climb that Zaragoza had been leading since the start of 2021, and which had resulted in nine victories in the first 10 games of the year between the domestic tournament and the Champions League.
Nevertheless, Casademont is now three victories of the eighth classified, and five of the seventh, when ten games remain until the end of the regular competition. All this, when tall opponents still await, of a maximum demand, such as Real Madrid, Unicaja de Málaga, Valencia Basket, Lenovo Tenerife or Burgos.
In this scenario, Casademont focuses on the Champions League, where two vital duels ensue in their aspirations. The first obstacle attends Dinamo Sassari (tomorrow, 8:00 p.m.), a team that presents itself in the Príncipe Felipe pavilion after having bent the knee in their two commitments in this second phase: it fell in Italy, precisely against Casademont Zaragoza (77-65), on the opening day; and was also beaten a week later by Nymburg in the Czech Republic (90-89).
Two days after facing the transalpinos, the Zaragoza squad receives Nymburg (Thursday, 8:00 pm), a rival that remains undefeated in this round of the tournament. The Czechs defeated a Brose Bamberg on the first day with numerous casualties in their ranks (91-87), and later they were undone by the minimum of Dinamo Sassari, just before they were detected positive for coronavirus in their squad.
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