“Neither Barça nor we are one hundred percent satisfied with our performance”

The Real Madrid basketball coach, Chus Mateo, assured this Wednesday that beating Barça at the Palau Blaugrana on this day of the Euroleague would be “a starting point” to try to turn around the team’s bad streak away from home, and He made it clear that two teams that “want to improve” and that are not “one hundred percent satisfied with their current performance” will be measured.

“It would be a good starting point, but regardless of what is going to happen at the Palau, win or lose, we have to continue doing the job. We would like it to be that way and that we could start a series of victories away from home,” said Mateo in the preview of the Classic this Thursday.

The Madrid coach stated that this match is “something special and beautiful” because it motivates them and that it has to “help them grow because it comes at the right time.” “We have to try not to obsess over a situation that is repeating itself. Each game would have to be nuanced, some with a similar story and others not, but I think that by working we will be closer and closer to that which has been resisting us,” he acknowledged. .

The Madrid team has not achieved any away victory in European competition so far this season, a fact that its coach hopes does not generate “excessive pressure or anxiety.” “We have to try not to go too crazy, do our job on a day-to-day basis and add victories, whether at home or away, and be prepared for what is coming in the final stretch and face it with characteristics that we can meet,” he highlighted.

“I think we haven’t played good games. We have to be a little more disciplined when we play away from home, when it comes to being rigorous in what we play, in what we command, in how we execute, in controlling losses, in not doing Silly mistakes. We have to be more cautious in our game. Maybe we don’t have the happy and colorful team that we could have had last year, where there were things that flowed by themselves. Now, anyway, we have to be a little more. disciplined and more rigid when it comes to praising,” he asserted.

For this Thursday’s match they will have all 13 first team players, an “idyllic” situation after suspensions and injuries, and after the return of Usman Garuba. “We have thirteen guys who are now training with quality. We have had three extraordinary days of training and we are going to be competing no matter what happens,” he declared.

Regarding Garuba, however, he pointed out that “the most normal thing is that he is not” in this Classic due to his long time “unemployed” and because “he needs to train with his teammates.” “He is also improving physically and little by little he will pick up the pace. I think we also have to give him a margin so that he can do new things. He hasn’t gotten into the day-to-day dynamics for quite some time and we need days so that we can later get him into guaranteed matches,” he confirmed.

Point guard Andrés Feliz, who recently returned from a foot injury, also “needs to regain his rhythm and time and patience” because Mateo knows what he brings to the team, while he celebrated that both Dzanan Musa and Mario Hezonja have had ” a very good performance with their teams” who they helped in their second games of this ‘FIBA window’.

“BARÇA LOOKS VERY FLUID IN ATTACK”

“Dzanan came very happy because he has ‘wet the ear’ of his friend and both have trained since Tuesday at a good level. Musa is still a little lame in his ankle, an injury from which he will little by little recover. He has also made an effort to return a little earlier, because we expected more recovery time, and it is nothing important, nothing that prevents him from being one hundred percent,” he said about the Bosnian forward.

Regarding Barça, he preferred not to “give an opinion on the feelings of others”, although he admitted that “it is a great team regardless of who coaches it and which players are on its squad.” “It will always be a club that is in the first positions in the Endesa League and in the Euroleague. It also has great demands with players of great stature and with a lot of pride. In attack they look very fluid, it is one of their virtues, a team that shoots extraordinarily well from outside, and its centers know their role well. They have put together a really good block with high-level players,” he explained.

“The injuries have affected them, but the teams must deal with that. It will be a match between two teams that want to improve, because, surely, neither of us are one hundred percent satisfied with our performance. I can’t get into the head of Joan (Peñarroya), he will have his problems and I will have mine, which are many and I try to tackle them little by little. I am very optimistic: everything will get better,” he concluded.