Joan Peñarroya screams and Zeljko Obradovic screams next to him, but the decibels of Belgrade’s Stark Arena, a pressure cooker in which 20,000 throats are crowded, mute any hint of communication 40 seconds from the final horn. Nothing seems to affect Will Clyburn, who with the game in possession of the ball takes the ball, dribbles, overturns, dribbles again and shoots from the logo to silence the Partizan pavilion and unleash amazement in the stands. A play, the last of the brilliant American striker in the Euroleague, which could well summarize the performance of this Barcelona: capable of storming the most feared places in Europe and suffering their third defeat of the season at Palau just two days later against UCAM Murcia.
This Friday, the Catalans measure this galloping irregularity against their sporting nemesis, Real Madrid (8.30pm, Movistar+). It will be the first classic for Clyburn, who, having arrived in Barcelona this summer, faced the Bianconeri on 19 occasions wearing the shirts of Darussafaka, CSKA Moscow, Anadolu Efes and Virtus Bologna. With a record of nine wins and ten losses, the Detroit forward averages 13.5 points, six rebounds and one assist per game against Real Madrid, numbers practically identical to those recorded in his ten seasons in the Euroleague.
With Tornike Shengelia in the air, suffering from a sprained ankle after the last league match against UCAM Murcia, Clyburn is forced to take a step forward against Real. MVP of the 2019 Final Four, when he tasted continental glory with the last great CSKA, and a member of the Euroleague’s best quintet that same year and in 2021, the American must rediscover a consistency that, at 35 years old, does not seem as guaranteed as in the past.
Indispensable as few times this season, the good performance of the Detroit forward will still not be enough for Barça to defeat Real Madrid this Friday at Palau, something that has not happened in the Euroleague since 2022, when the azulgranas, then led by Saras Jasikevicius, defeated a Real Madrid that would end up winning that Euroleague with a last-gasp basket from Sergio Llull. Thus, Kevin Punter, Jan Vesely, Tomas Satoransky and Darío Brizuela must accompany Clyburn so that his team puts an end to a series of four consecutive defeats in Europe (eight in all competitions) against the whites, desperate for an away victory that they have not yet known in the Euroleague under the command of Sergio Scariolo.
To achieve this, it remains to be seen whether Peñarroya will be able to count on Shengelia, who returned to training this Thursday, and on another of the most important pieces of their offensive department: Nicolás Laprovittola. Injured his left thigh in the European duel on October 3 against Panathinaikos, the Argentine point guard returned to training this Wednesday with the group, so as to be able to have minutes in a fundamental match for his team. “At the moment we are not realizing that communion of other times with Palau,” the Barça coach acknowledged this week in May you play! of Cadena SER. “We must make a greater effort so that our fans feel well represented. And to demonstrate it, what could be better than a match like the classic.”
Confident in the performance of the starters on the pitch, including obviously Clyburn, the Tarrasa coach underlined in his latest press conference to the second unit, from whom he asks for more, among other things, so as not to concede 34 points in the first quarter as happened last Sunday against UCAM Murcia. Aware of the effect of his words, even more so in the face of a match of this magnitude, Peñarroya wanted to lighten the burden of the issue this Thursday. “We need everyone to contribute,” he said. “Last year we didn’t manage to win any classics, but I’m sure that if we could do it now it would give us extra motivation.”
