The ACB starts: Unicaja aspires to end the Madrid-Barça duopoly in the League with 111 signings
The former English footballer Gary Lineker At the 1990 World Cup in Italy he coined a phrase that passed down to posterity: “Football is an 11 against 11 sport in which Germany always wins”. Extrapolating that axiom to Spanish basketball, it could be said that The League is a championship played five against five and almost always won by Madrid or Barça.
Between whites (7) and azulgranas (5) They have won 12 of the last 14 Leagues. Only the Valencia (2017) and the Baskonia (2020) ephemerally interrupted the tyranny of the two transatlantics of Spanish basketball. But this campaign The League could wake up from that groundhog day that has been recurring since time immemorial thanks to Unicaja, which has proven to be a real alternative to end the Madrid-Barça duopoly.
Unicaja celebrates its victory in the Super Cup final after defeating Madrid in the final.
The Malaga team won the Super Cup just six days ago after beating Madrid in the final (80-90), confirming its upward trend that it already showed last season, leading the League for many daysalthough the surprising UCAM Murcia He aborted his attempted coup d’état by defeating him in the semi-final playoffs after coming back from 0-2 down.
Winning block with reinforcements
It was an incomprehensible accident, but Ibon Navarro’s team has the courage to try again to assault the throne of Spanish basketball. It has managed to maintain its winning block and has been reinforced with Killian Tillie, Tyson Pérez and Olek Balcerowski.
Usman Garuba, one of Madrid’s reinforcements, poses with his new shirt.
He Real Madridcurrent champion, has incorporated Andrés Feliz, Rathan-Mayes, Ibaka and Garubathese last two back to the club. And Barça, which has only won two of the last 10 Leagues, will try to react with Peñarroya on the bench and five signings: Núñez, Punter, Anderson, Youssoupha Fall and Chimezie Metu.
47.4% are new hires
It will be a record season with 111 signingsalmost half of the total 234 registered players today. Until 11 of the 18 teams have changed at least half of their squadsbut not all of them will be new faces since 69 of them were already playing in Spain last season, 17 are returning from abroad and 42 are making their debut in the Endesa League.
ACB PHOTO
He Lleidaone of the two newly promoted teams along with Coruñais the one who has changed his physiognomy the most with 10 new players. They follow him Manresa and Breogán (9), Girona and Bilbao (8), Granada and Andorra (7). Those who have touched their squads the least are UCAM Murcia (2), current that aspires to continue flying high, Unicaja (3) and Madrid (4). It is no coincidence that they are the three that bestor campaign they did. What works is not touched… or touched little.
