Friday May 14th 2021
Hammer task in the cup is waiting
Knockout blues torment Bavaria’s basketball players
The basketball players from Bayern Munich have been weakening since the end in the Euroleague. That should change again with the final tournament for the cup. It is the second attempt to play the first title. “We should stop talking about the Euroleague now,” said the coach.
The trip through Europe was magical, it was historic, but since it came to an end, the basketball players at Bayern Munich have been sagging. So it’s time for a word of power. “We should stop talking about the Euroleague now,” said coach Andrea Trinchieri: “The season was incredible and great, we went beyond our limits and had a fantastic run. But now we have to focus on reality.”
The reality: After the “Top Four” cup final tournament was canceled a month ago, Bayern are now trying this weekend to win the first title of the season with the second attempt. “We are now in the middle of the phase for which you worked for a whole year. It’s about a first trophy,” emphasized sports director Daniele Baiesi, who on Thursday extended his contract to 2023 in the “Münchner Merkur”. Meanwhile, Trinchieri is still hesitating to accept.
The reality also means: A German team’s end in the first quarter-finals in the Euroleague was followed by two defeats in the Bundesliga. First at Ratiopharm Ulm, then against the preliminary round leader MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg. And already after the debacle in Ulm (64:99), Trinchieri scolded: “That’s us at the moment: a weak team without energy and the desire to play defense; without the minimum that is needed to be competitive.” And he added: “There is not much time left.”
Trinchieri warns urgently against Ulm
Strictly speaking, the Munich team now had a five-day break to get back to their strengths. On Saturday (4 p.m., all games at Magenta Sport) the first semi-final will be against Ulm in the club’s own Audi Dome. “They”, says Trinchieri respectfully, “are currently the hottest team in the Bundesliga” and “just a week ago they just drove over us like that”. Ulm have won nine games in a row.
Small phase of weakness, strong opponent – the goal of the Munich team is of course the final on Sunday (3 p.m.), in which it goes against the record cup winner (10) and double winner Alba Berlin or the BG Göttingen. “Everyone comes into the hall every day to win titles. They count at the end of the day, at the end of a career. We want to win,” emphasizes Zan Mark Sisko, Munich’s Slovenian point guard.
A title would also be an important clue for the play-offs that begin a few days later. Bayern, after the preliminary round fourth behind Ludwigsburg, Berlin and Oldenburg, will meet the Hakro Marlins Crailsheim from Wednesday in the quarter-final series according to the “best of five” mode. After their only cup win in 2018, they also became champions. Trinchieri also knows how double works: in 2017 he won it with Brose Bamberg. It should definitely be one of the two titles. Should it turn out differently, Baiesi admits, “we would certainly be disappointed, no question about it”.
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