Madrid, May 10 (EFE).- Real Madrid defeated Partizán Belgrade 98-94 on Wednesday with a comeback, against whom they lost by up to 18 points at the beginning of the third quarter, and qualified for the final phase of the Euroleague basketball, which will be played on May 19 and 21 in Kaunas (Lithuania) and in which they will face Barça in the semifinals.
The Spanish team had come back in Belgrade from 0-2 with which Partizan took the lead in Madrid in the quarterfinal tie. And in the fifth and decisive duel, Chus Mateo’s team was almost always behind on the scoreboard, but they came back spectacularly in the last quarter and ended up winning at the WiZink Center to get the ticket to Kaunas.
A stellar Sergio Rodríguez was key in the victory, who finished the duel with 19 points. It was in the third quarter when Madrid closed the gap and got to just seven points, to take the lead in the last and final and maintain their lead until the end.
Real Madrid will be Barça’s rival in the semifinals of the ‘Final Four’ in Kaunas. The azulgranas beat Zalgiris on the fast track. In the other, the Greek Olympiacos and Monaco will play, which this Wednesday defeated Maccabi Tel Aviv 97-86 in the fifth match to access a Euroleague final phase for the first time in its history.
The Real Madrid coach highlights the comeback
Chus Mateo, Real Madrid coach, appeared in the press room with his entire technical team to acknowledge the work they had done, and commented that “many people” gave them “for dead”.
“Sometimes sport does not have logical explanations and the heart does the impossible. Today we have turned around a game that had become very complicated”, said Mateo.
“We have turned around a 0-2 situation when many people thought we were dead and only a few nails were missing from the coffin,” he added.
“We knew that we had to take this opportunity, we had many casualties and the statistics were against us, but the players have given us another lesson, pride and effort. You have to be very proud of this team, ”he continued.