By Cesare Milanti / info@Eurohoops.net
MALAGA, Spain – Entering the airport in Milan and seeing Hapoel Jerusalem fans waiting for the opening of the gate with flags and scarves everywhere, in the middle of the night, made me realize that Malaga was about to witness once again the craziness of those types of supporters.
But today in the Martin Carpena Arena, the show was brought by another man from Hapoel. He answers to the name of Aleksandar and the surname of Dzikic, and he completely stole the show in the Holiday World Polynesia. Not in front of the captivating Mediterranean Sea, but at floor -1, dropping the mic when asked about Hapoel’s potential.
“Listen, guys. It’s kinda obvious: Tenerife and Unicaja are EuroLeague teams. Quality-wise, coaching-wise, experience-wise, logistics-wise. Come on. Everybody in this room knows that”, he said. And it doesn’t really matter if he meant that, or if “everybody” in that room agreed or not: that was by far the best part of this Day 1 in the city of Malaga, which is not as draped with Final Four banners as last year’s Bilbao.
While both the quality of the teams and the gentlemen’s outfits of the head coaches – except for Aleksandar Dzikic, what could you have expected differently? – are on the table, I missed some excitement throughout the city. The Martin Carpena Arena is quite far from the heart of the city center, but that doesn’t seem like an excuse. Let’s see if that changes tomorrow when the real deal will be sealed.
Last but not least: it’s hot in Malaga, really hot. But wait for the start of the first semifinal between Lenovo Tenerife and Hapoel Jerusalem, with something around 3.000 Israeli fans expected at the arena, and the second one between the home-crowd heroes of Unicaja and Bonn. It will be way hotter…
PHOTO CREDIT: Basketball Champions League