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Oh baby, it's Berlin or bust!
 A couple of days ago I was reading my friend Marco Mordente's Euroleague goodbye blog, in which he was thanking everybody for the opportunity to blog here and at the same time did some predictions for the upcoming Quarterfinal Playoffs. Reading all that, it occurred to me that I am not ready yet to see my Euroleague season end. So I consider myself quite a happy person to still be part of the field, and on my way to an attractive series, because I am absolutely sure that is what our matchup with Olympiacos will be.
At the same time though, having taken part in all but one Final Four since 2004, I am also a little spoiled. I would, of course, love to get there again, but that goes for everybody, as I realized while speaking to Theo Papaloukas, one of my closest friends in basketball, earlier this week. Waging a small psychological war, he already told me that, in his view, we did not have a chance to beat Olympiacos the way they are playing right now. So I told him that we almost threw a party about playing them and not somebody else (I was joking, just to make sure that nobody gets this wrong) because out of all seven teams they were our favorite matchup.
After an exhausting month of February, with lots of big games, a week with no games gave us an opportunity to have a perfect mix of hard practice, fine-tuning tactics and lots of rest. It even feels a little bit like preseason, trying to get ready for the bigger work ahead. Playing six games in the next two weeks will not leave much time for any of those things - practice, fine-tuning or rest. We will play against Eurocup quarterfinalist Pamesa Valencia on Sunday in the Spanish League, and I guess this could be a perfect general rehearsal for the Olympiacos series. After spending next week in Athens against the Reds, in between Game 2 and Game 3 we will also have to fly all the way to Gran Canaria, the longest road trip in the Spanish League, to play a difficult away game against the sixth-place team in the standings. All this means that we will have to come ready, physically and mentally, to make it to Berlin.
Talking about making it to Berlin, however, the fact that scares me the most is that my wife Julie is due with our firstborn, a daughter, in early May! We keep joking about it all the time, how Murphy's law will make sure that both events will happen at the same time, and how it would be such an unfair choice. But we are still three wins away from that…and I will keep you all posted!
POSTED BY
Tomas Van den Spiegel, Madrid
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