When Rudy Fernández decided to leave the NBA to wear the Real Madrid jersey in the summer of 2012, the white team had gone more than seventeen years without winning the top continental competition. The Mallorcan forward had a short previous stint in the capital of Spain, due to the lockout of the American league, which coincided with Pablo Laso’s beginnings on the Merengue bench. Ramón Calderón’s parenthesis left two football leagues and one basketball league in the Santiago Bernabéu showcases, as well as a ULEB Cup, but Real Madrid needed to recover his identity. The return of Florentino Pérez in 2009 opened a new era in which Cristiano Ronaldo became the most decisive player since Alfredo Di Stéfano. The crisis in the basketball section was of greater dimensions than that of football, and Pérez pulled out his checkbook to secure the award-winning Ettore Messina as coach. The Italian had a task similar to the one entrusted to José Mourinho a year later: equalize the duels with the Barcelona Football Club and make Real Madrid feared again in Europe. The Setúbal coach began his romance with the stands before taking possession of the Bernabéu side, unlike a Messina team to whom the fans turned their backs. The basketball section had stopped being interesting. After the demolition of the Raimundo Saporta Pavilion, Real Madrid wandered through Vistalegre, the Caja Mágica or even the Madrid Arena, places where cement predominated in successive failures.
Florentino Pérez’s first stage was not brilliant in the sport of basketball. The most commented memory of those disappointments was an interview that Pérez gave to The spar, in which questioned by Kaspars Kambala, the president responded “we were about to sign him”, when the Latvian center was already wearing white. Lolo Sainz, then technical director, clarified that it had been a joke. Basketball could not alleviate the lack of success in football as it had done on other occasions, and Florentino Pérez considered closing the section in 2010 and 2011. “In basketball it is almost all expenses,” said the president at the General Assembly of 2010, months before firing Messina who complained about the lack of unity with the players. Juan Carlos Sánchez assumed the direction of the sports field, with Alberto Herreros as squire, under the protection of the general director, Jorge Valdano, in one of his last services before his clashes with Mourinho led him to leave Chamartín. A man of his utmost trust and a fan of Real Madrid, Antonio García Ferreras convinced Florentino Pérez to listen to the advice of Javier García Coll and hire Pablo Laso. The Vitorian had the difficult task of earning the respect of the faithful who accompanied the team on its return to the Sports Palace.
The possible end of the basketball section was not new. After winning the European Football Cup five consecutive times, the sixties were difficult years financially for Real Madrid. The great promoter of this sport in the entity (and in Europe), Raimundo Saporta, designed a plan to improve the financial situation, which included the suppression of his “own son.” Don Santiago Bernabéu refused to dissolve Pedro Ferrándiz’s team, as he did with other sections. Saporta soon generated income for his favorite sport with a masterstroke: he secured sponsorship from Philips thanks to the broadcast of the matches through Spanish Television, which also paid compensation for the rights. The arrival of the Dutch brand and the public entity illuminated the long-awaited Christmas Tournament. Emiliano Rodríguez and Clifford Luyk were the pillars that took over the football team to bring more continental trophies to the Santiago Bernabéu.
Basketball became the second most popular sport in a Spain that sought cultural references on the other side of the Atlantic after the Transition. Spanish Television brought Spaniards “close to the stars” to the rhythm of George Michael. Some tracks that seemed too far away when Fernando Martín made the leap as the leading exponent of the team that won Olympic silver in Los Angeles 1984, after the World Cup that was held in Spain two years later. Lolo Sainz’s team moved to the Palacio de los Deportes due to the increase in fans who wanted to witness the duels between Martín and Audie Norris, or the exciting season of Drazen Petrovic. Spanish society mourned the death of Fernando Martín at the age of 27 in a traffic accident. A year and a half later, the curse that haunted the section claimed another victim: coach Ignacio Pinedo suffered a heart attack during a Korac Cup match that ended his life five months later. Ramón Mendoza unsuccessfully searched for new sponsors that would reduce the losses, which is why he resigned in the fall of 1995, when the General Assembly did not approve his accounts. The former Bernabéu manager appeared before the members escorted by the European Cup that the team captained by Sabonis and Arlauckas had won. Lorenzo Sanz won the first “Champions” for Real Madrid, thirty-two years after the sixth achieved by the “yé-yé”. A triumph that aggravated the wound of basketball, which had to return to the Ciudad Deportiva due to economic cuts.
The white club needed a new reference to change its destiny. Gone were the days of glory in a Sports Palace that burned on June 28, 2001. The ACB did not know how to manage its success after joining Canal+, and was hit by the birth of the Euroleague at the beginning of the current century. Barça won the Old Continent’s top competition twice, while Madrid remained installed in “the Blacksmiths’ league.” The arrival of Rudy Fernández gave the white team the intensity that Pablo Laso demanded, and the Kings, Mirotic, Llull and Rodríguez took a step forward, whom only an inspired Vassilis Spanoulis deprived of the desired ninth. Since that final, Real Madrid has collected titles, including three Euroleagues, while the soccer team has won five other Champions Leagues. That young man who dunked in the face of “Superman” Howard in an Olympic final matured with the white shirt, which he chose with the challenge of facing Juan Carlos Navarro’s Barça. The Spaniard has not topped the statistical tables, but he has played his best minutes on both sides of the field when the ball was burning the most. Doncic, Campazzo and Tavares have been infected by his spirit, which has once again filled the renowned Wizink Center.
The white club needed a new reference to change its destiny. The arrival of Rudy Fernández gave the white team the intensity that Pablo Laso demanded
The demands of Real Madrid have cost Fernández to receive more than one whistle from his fans, a pressure that his successors will also have to deal with beyond scoring baskets. The basketball section continues to be in deficit, but it contributes prestige to the Real Madrid brand, the main reason for the social mass to accept losing more than twenty million per season. Real Madrid fans identify with nights like those of the last Euroleague, in the same way that Don Santiago Bernabéu supported the team created by Raimundo Saporta. Rudy Fernández fights to say goodbye by helping to lift new trophies alongside Sergio Llull, while Juan Carlos Sánchez faces the difficult task of preventing the basketball team from falling behind again.
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2024-04-12 06:14:19
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