By Lefteris Moutis
Unicaja is on the brink! Seven games before the end of the regular season in Spanish championship is in tenth position and their presence in Euroleague next season is uncertain.
Unicaja celebrated just two victories during last 18 games in all competitions (Spanish League, Cup and Euroleague) following exactly the opposite path in comparison with the results until the end of 2011. On January 3, 2012 Malaga was in the top of the standings with just three defeats in Liga Endesa and now the danger of not playing in next Euroleague is more visible than ever.
Euroleague has declared to the Andalusian team that if they don’t take part in this year’s Spanish league playoffs, they won’t play in the Euroleague, like what happened to Roma who lost the A license because of their poor results!
Of course, it is hard to say that this season was accidental… It’s one more chapter in a continuing decline. Unicaja has the fourth lowest score in Euroleague’s ranking system during the last three years among the 13 teams that have an A license and completed the last two seasons having more losses than wins (this year record was 4-12 and last’s was 6-10).
The pressure of Bilbao and Valencia to the Spanish league and Euroleague is intense, but as Euroleague has informed the four Spanish A licenses -FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Caja Laboral and Unicaja- will apply also this year for last time. Unless a team doesn’t fulfill the criteria, such as Unicaja is on danger.
What are the causes for this decline? As Juan Calderon, reporter of “Diario Sur” says: “There are two main reasons. The excellent start of the season made everyone in the team to relax. The board wasn’t enough clever to sign directly a shooter, nor enough to cover the injuries (for example Freeland, Rowland, Darden). Also, when the team started losing, the former coach, Chus Mateo, wasn’t so strong in locker rooms. He faced players as friends, used to talk them like he was one of them, but in fact the team needed a strict coach”.
Coach Mateo replaced by Casimiro (phot.) and DeVries came in place of Fitch, but the changes haven’t benefited still Unicaja, which if continues like that; will face heavy consequences. A bank is the owner of Malaga, which has already informed that in any case next season the budget will be reduced at least 20%. And if Unicaja will not play in Euroleague, the reduction will be even bigger and can be as high as 40%!
The biggest challenge of the decade is in front of Unicaja!