Barça seeks the best opening of the year against Virtus
BARCELONA, 4 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Barça receives Virtus Segafredo Bologna this Wednesday (8:30 p.m.) at the Palau Blaugrana, on matchday 17 of the Euroleague Regular Phase, a duel in which the ‘culés’ seek a new victory that will make them start the season well and thus be able to aspire to leadership alone.
Barça is coming at a good time, both for winning in Belgrade and in Madrid, and Sarunas Jasikevicius’ men are looking to extend it in one of the most difficult games at the moment, against a Virtus team that has also won three of its last four games in the Euroleague and that, despite being out of the ‘play-offs’ zone, it is a clear candidate team to be in them.
The blaugrana are looking for the best possible start to the year, after opening it with a great victory in the Endesa League Clásico last Monday (78-87 at the WiZink Center). If they manage to beat Virtus on this new day of the Euroleague, the opening of the year couldn’t be better.
And the closing was already quite good. The ‘culés’ come to this appointment after beating the Red Star at the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall (94-99). on the last day of 2022, with a great performance by Tomas Satoransky (19 points, 10 assists and 3 rebounds), seconded by 15 points from Cory Higgins and 14 from Alex Abrines.
“The most important thing after a victory like this is the mental aspect. At Barça it’s not news if you win. We won a clearly important point that made the fans happy, but we have to forget it because a team is coming that can beat anyone, and that He knows that he has his options here”, assured the Blaugrana coach, Sarunas Jasikevicius, at a previous press conference.
For its part, Sergio Scariolo’s Virtus comes into the game after beating Fenerbahçe (92-88) at the Virtus Segafredo Arena, with a great performance from one of its references such as Marco Belinelli (18 points), as well as Mam Jaiteh (14 points and 7 rebounds), a center who will try to make the night bitter for Jan Vesely and Sertaç Sanli.
BARÇA: Laprovittola, Satoransky, Kalinic, Mirotic and Vesely –possible starting five–; Da Silva, Sanli, Abrines, Higgins, Tobey, Kuric and Jokubaitis.
VIRTUS BOLONIA: Mannion, Lundberg, Weems, Shengelia and Jaiteh –possible initial quintet–; Belinelli, Pajola, Bako, Mickey, Camera and Theodosic.
–REFEREES: Radovic, Petek and Udyanskyy.
–HALL: Palau Blaugrana.
