The suffocating schedule and the increasingly high competition have turned the current Euroleague season into an entity that is difficult to decipher. That is why, after seven days, the classification throws up unprecedented scenes, such as seeing Barcelona and Zalgiris Kaunas fight week after week for the lead, or watching how Real Madrid, king of the tournament, has a hard time to add more than two consecutive victories. Surprises that, however, have been dwarfed by Paris Basketball, a team that eight years ago played in the French fifth division and that now rubs shoulders with and bothers the great shields of the continent. His arrival in the Euroleague could not have been more epic. After losing their first two games with very close scores, against Red Star and Olimpia Milan, the Gauls achieved the first victory in their history in the European Cup against the current champion, the Greek Panathinaikos (84-80). An unexpected achievement that they enhanced with two more wins, this time against Monaco and Alba Berlin, before hosting Pablo Laso’s Baskonia today. Paris is on everyone’s lips for its electric and modern game (against the Germans they broke the competition’s record for three-pointers after shooting a total of 52) and because it is coached from the bench by a legend of the Spanish league, the Brazilian Tiago Splitter, former Baskonia player and NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs. But the truth is that, in the shadows, the brain of the trendy Euroleague team is Spanish. His name is Álex Requena, he is only 30 years old and is currently the vice president of the French club, as well as the person most responsible for its strategic growth. The adventure of a child prodigy who is now on the crest of the wave but which began 12 years ago, when the Valencian, after finishing his career as a player, traveled to France with a scholarship to begin training as a coach. He spent seven years on the Côte d’Azur, specifically in Marseille, being part of the coaching staff of a local club while studying a master’s degree in Sports Management. But football knocked on his door and he ended up working at Olympique, one of the most important clubs in France and where he shared offices with the legendary Andoni Zubizarreta, former Barcelona goalkeeper and sports director of the Marseillais at that time. Related News VIOLENCE GENDER standard No Sitapha Savané will file a lawsuit after being accused of sexual assault anonymously on social networks Laura Bautista The president of the Dreamland Gran Canaria basketball club has announced that he will file a lawsuit to defend himself against “slander” Requena seems a restless man and , when the Covid pandemic arrived in 2020, when football was paused and everyone opted for a sedentary lifestyle, he received an offer that no one could refuse and the NBA took over his services. «I got the opportunity to fulfill a dream, which was to work in the NBA, and I spent two years collaborating with them, especially on projects in Africa. There I was able to work on the team that created a league from scratch. “It dealt with the whole issue of basketball operations, strategy and branding,” said the Valencian in an interview with ‘Relevo’ last March. That collaboration is fundamental to explain the current success of Paris Basketball. During his time with the Americans, he became friends with David Kahn, former executive of the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Eric Schwartz, one of the owners of the Atlanta Hawks, both NBA franchises. Together they realized that Paris, one of the world capitals, lacked a sports culture commensurate with its magnitude. And, after taking control of Paris, which was beginning to take off after its founding in 2016, the team has experienced an unstoppable rise. Supported by the Euroleague itself, delighted to extend its business to the French capital, Paris made a place for itself in the French first division in 2021. But its great success came last season, when it was proclaimed champion of the Eurocup, the second most important continental competition, after beating the London Lions in the final. That victory definitely propelled him and made him receive an invitation to play in the Euroleague where, in record time, he has begun to write his legend among the greats of basketball.
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