Next Saturday, in Palencia, Unicaja will play its first official match of the recently released 2024. It will be the first appointment of a green team that has closed an unforgettable 2023 and that faces the new year with many challenges, without any obligation, but with enthusiasm to win some of the titles that will be at stake.
In principle, Unicaja will fight for three titles in 2024, which could even be up to five. And in addition to the Copa del Rey, the Basketball Champions League and the Endesa League, Unicaja could also play the Intercontinental Cup next September (if they win the BCL) and the Endesa Super Cup, prior to the start of the next ACB League 2024/2025, depending on the results in the two national competitions.
The good moment that the team is experiencing, which currently has 12 consecutive league victories, which is second in the Endesa League classification, with three victories over its immediate pursuers, and which has been champion of its European group in the first phase of the FIBA Champions, it is true that it invites optimism, but lifting a trophy is very difficult, especially due to the tough competition from rivals who are, economically, in many cases, much more powerful.
Endesa League
Winning the Endesa League seems like a utopia. The Los Guindos club has only done it once in its entire history, in 2006. Seeing Unicaja second in the standings right now with just one day left in the first round, having beaten Real Madrid and Barça, invites you to dream with everything. But in a competition that is decided in a play off of the best of 5 games, the options of surprising the two “greats” of Spanish basketball are much more limited. The top favorites are, once again, Real Madrid and Barça, who triple Unicaja’s budget, who have very long squads and who, yes, are obliged to lift the trophy.
Unicaja’s objective must be to reach May in the best possible disposition to fight for what they can… or for what they leave them. Returning to the semifinals would be a great result, although surely the green and purple squad, at least as of January 1, 2024, is not satisfied with just that.
Copa del Rey
This coming February, the Copa del Rey will be played at the Martín Carpena. Unicaja, current champion after Badalona 2023, will also do so as the top seed, avoiding Real Madrid and Barça, at least, until the semifinals. The ko tournament is one of those events that the staff has marked in red on the calendar. Repeating the title, this time at home, would be something historic for a Unicaja team that demonstrated last year at the Olimpic in Badalona that it was prepared to compete against the best, in three dog-eat-dog games, in just 4 days.
Carpena and the “green tide” will do the rest to help as much as possible a team that, although it will not be in the usual atmosphere of the Sports Palace because there will be fans of the other seven teams in the stands, it does seem that Unicaja will have its chances of reigning again in the cup.
Basketball Champions League
The European competition seems the most attainable objective of those at stake. More than anything because neither Real Madrid nor Barça play the BCL. Not even Valencia Basket or Baskonia. Obviously, it will not be easy to lift the top FIBA continental trophy, but Unicaja is one of the top favorites and the green and purple squad knows it. Furthermore, the cajistas players have still not forgotten what happened last season in the Final Four in Malaga 2023. The team, on one of the most important days of the course, failed in the semifinals against Telekom Bonn. The players have not forgotten it and want sporting “revenge” this season.
The first objective is to repeat the experience in the Final Four next May (in a venue yet to be defined) and then get rid of the thorn of what happened in the Carpena 4-all match. Winning the Champions League would be closing a historical circle for a group of players who are already the history of the green and purple club, but who can become legends if they repeat the title in this 2024/2025 season.. The league? The cup? The BCL?… I hope one arrives. It seems that there are human resources and chemistry to at least try.
2024-01-01 12:00:27
#Unicajas #challenges
