The painful defeat by almost 30 points (69-98) against the French Asvel, on Thursday, was the final sentence for Álex Mumbrú. Since the presentation, the public at the Fuente de San Luis pavilion showed their discontent towards the Catalan coach – also against the sports director, Luis Arbalejo – and during the match shouts were heard calling for his departure. It was a death foretold, and Valencia Basket announced this morning the dismissal of the Catalan coach, who has not managed to finish the second of the three seasons he had, by contract, at the head of a team that has not finished completing its project. The substitute will be a man of the house, Xavi Albert, a young 36-year-old coach who until now was Mumbrú's assistant.
The former Valencia Basket coach arrived at Juan Roig's club in the summer of 2022. Mumbrú led the team during 133 games in which there were more defeats (70) than victories (63) and leaves Valencia Basket on the brink of elimination in the Euroleague, with the semifinals of the Copa del Rey and a disappointing seventh place in the ACB League, with the playoffs in danger. On Thursday, after the hard setback in Europe, he left a sentence in which he showed his understanding of the fans' anger. “I feel strong, yes, but today was the worst game and we have to apologize to the fans for not being up to par,” he said at the press conference after the game.
The club had already taken a turn in June 2023, when it fired Chechu Mulero, who had been the sports director since 2014. The squad designed by his replacement, Luis Arbalejo, was full of new features, players who were very physically strong to endure the rhythm of alternating the ACB League with the Euroleague. The first days were promising. The team, with one of the best defenses on the continent, made its way like an icebreaker, but, little by little, it lost its identity and defeats began to prevail over defeats. The team began to fall in the standings of the two competitions and the fans saw that, once again, the project was falling apart.
The entity, whose general director is Enric Carbonell, has struggled to find the key to success since the surprising departure of Pedro Martínez after winning the first and only ACB League in the history of Valencia Basket in 2017. To the champion coach He was succeeded by Txus Vidorreta, Jaume Ponsarnau, Joan Peñarroya and Álex Mumbrú, four coaches who failed to succeed on a bench as mysteriously complicated as the Valencian one. The progress of the Roig Arena works does not help to be patient, the lavish facility that will become, in 2025 or 2026, the team's new home and which will have a capacity of 15,500 spectators, a double-edged sword if Valencia Basket He fails to make his audience fall in love with him. From those around the club it is taken for granted that the inauguration of the Roig Arena can bring Valencia the Copa del Rey and the Final Four of the Euroleague, and that the patron dreams of a great team that can be in both competitions.
The Valencia Basket squad is now in the hands of Xavi Albert, a coach from whom much is expected in Valencia since, in the summer of 2022, he was invited by the Portland Trail Blazers to participate as an assistant in the NBA Summer League.
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