For Xavi Pascual It is always special to return to the Palau but today it will be even more so since the Gavà coach and the Barça team champion of the 2010 Euroleague that he led will receive a deserved tribute before the duel with him Zenith. The now coach of the Russian team remembers that great success and gives us his impressions of Barça and his team.
Return to the Palau with an audience and to celebrate a Euroleague title. You could ask for little more, right?
Well, I have come before with an audience but then the pandemic came and it is now that there are fans in the stands again. It is clear that it is always a pleasure to meet again with the Barça fans, and more so on such a special occasion.
How well that team played …
The truth is that if.
What would you highlight about that team, what made it different?
I think we had a lot of talent, which is the quality of doing things in difficult moments. Those players had that talent, players like Navarro, Ricky, Basile, Pete Mickeal and so many others. And then we had that part of talent combined with physicality in our interiors, like Ndong, Vázquez, Lorbek, Morris. And players who gave us an extra for knowing the house, for sacrifice, for putting the collective interest before the individual, such as Grimau, Sada, Trias or Lakovic.
“That Barça in 2010 had a lot of talent, which is the quality of doing things in difficult moments”
What moments come to mind when you think of that final in Paris?
The moment that Juan Carlos (Navarro) raised the MVP because I felt very happy that justice had been done to him and that it had contributed to him being able to celebrate it like this, I remember the fans who came, the moment that Laporta and the players of football enter the final, they arrived late due to flight problems caused by a volcano in Iceland … And the satisfaction I felt at having achieved something that the entity had never achieved away from home. Also having fulfilled my words a year before at the Final Four in Berlin when I said that ‘we will come back next year and we will win it’. Many memories … and he left me many.
He is going to meet again with many of his players from that team. Do you keep in touch with any of them?
On occasion yes. With the Catalan players it is easier because I have seen myself in different acts, with Pete (Mickeal) we have sometimes written to each other, I have also met Erazem (Lorbek). I do not have supercommunication with them, because work does not allow me either, but I have a very good relationship with all of them and very good memories.
Pascual, during one of the games of the last Euroleague playoff at the Palau
Last year Barça was at the gates of its third Euroleague. Do you see him again fighting for the title?
Totally. They have everything: they have the talent, the experience, having been close to achieving it and they have a very good coach. They have everything to fight for the title again this year. What happens is that the others also play, they have also strengthened and have the same interest. And in the end only one wins.
After the departures last summer, don’t you think that Barça has a fair amount of troops (only 13 seniors) for such a long and demanding season?
To win you depend on many things, if you have injuries everything changes. But if you manage to have everyone most of the time, they are a great team. When you shorten the templates, what you shorten above all is that when injuries arrive, sometimes you are not so covered. But from the start it seems to me that Barça is very well covered in all positions and can withstand an injury in any position. Now, sometimes it happens to you like me in 2011, Mickeal is injured, Basile is injured, then Navarro … and then even though you have a very good team … In that year the two best teams were us and Panathinaikos, we It was time to cross with them and without those troops. And it’s not the same. You depend on those things, but from the start the Barça squad is solvent and extraordinary and aspiring to win the Euroleague.
“If you have injuries, everything changes. But from the start it seems to me that Barça is very well covered in all positions”
His Zenit has also faced major changes this summer, starting with the departure of Kevin Pangos. How do you get over the goodbye of such an important player?
Well, thanking you for everything you have done for us, wishing you the best possible future and hope you enjoy the NBA. And what we have done is try to find that player who we believe can give us leadership, scoring and creativity. I think that as a main point guard we have signed very well, Shabazz Napier can do us very well, but unfortunately he was injured. In the semifinals of the VTB Super Cup he scored 33 points and gave 7 or 8 assists. But he was injured in the first 30 seconds of the next game. He’s been away for a month and he still has a few weeks left.
Pascual, cheering on his team from the band
Pangos has left but they have signed very important people like Napier, Loyd or Mickey. On paper this Zenit looks better than last year …
Let’s see if we can all compete together for a while and we will see it better, now it is very difficult to know. If we talk about the team today, the answer is without a doubt no. Now we are a team that competes, that suffers, that tries, but a priori cannot compete against the six biggest teams in the Euroleague. Let’s try.
They have started the Euroleague very well, with three victories in the first four games …
We are happy with how things have not gone, we have won two away games and one at home. Against CSKA we fell short but the truth is that we are very happy with how things are going
“Let’s see which players can play. We have had a lot of physical problems for a week”
And that they have injured Shabazz Napier … He can be a decisive player in Europe …
Without a doubt.
They have achieved two victories in the three games played away from home. What should they do to get a third at the Palau?
From the outset, although you are going to ask me the following question and I am not going to answer it, we are going to see which players can play. We have had a lot of physical problems for a week. If we were with the entire ‘roster’ I would tell you that we should play very well and that Barça may not have the best night. But with a staff reduced by one, two, three or …