Sarunas Jasikevicius regretted the racist insults his player James Nnaji received at the entrance to the WiZink Center before the third game of the Endesa League final between Barça and Real Madrid that crowned the Blaugrana team. In the round after the match, with the victory of his pupils (82-93), he considered that fact "serious".
"It's something unfortunate, it can't be, I hear a lot about Vinícius and now we have to talk about what's happening, because this has to stop now," he said angrily. "This doesn't fit with the values of Real Madrid and its fans and we have to be very angry. This can't be, I don't care if it's a player from Real Madrid or Barça or from another team, it can't be, we have to control this and fight against this and we are going to do it because this is more important than the title".
The Barça coach, who is unclear about his future, showed his full support for Nnaji with a public message. "James is a great guy and we want this to stop and stop talking about this," he added. The player was called a "shitty black whore" by some white supporter who was waiting for the Barça players at the exit of the bus before they entered the pavilion. Moments later, "Barça, racist, Spain is a Madridista" was also heard.
The disrespect towards the Barça players occurred in the same place 24 hours after the Blaugrana footballer Gavi was also insulted during the celebration of the Spanish team after the achievement of the Nations League.
Regarding the victory achieved, Jasikevicius praised the work of his players, who have managed to practice "the best game of the season." "The second game was a huge display of character after the hard stick in Kaunas (when they lost the Euroleague) and afterwards the team has managed to recover and we have even played our best basketball of the season", summed up the Lithuanian coach, who added that the semifinal series against Unicaja and the atmosphere of Martín Carpena "prepared his team very well" for the final.
He admitted feeling "enormous happiness" because the league title "is an important title and you always have to win something when you're in a big club" and he thought that the season is "exactly" as they had planned with the mole that they were not at the height "a single match", in reference to their defeats against Real Madrid in the Euroleague Final Four and against Unicaja in the Copa del Rey,
"I'm left with the character of the team, not to give up after a stick as important as that of the Euroleague, you could tell that from the next day and since then we have gone further," he added.
Asked about the great role played by Nikola Mirotic in the final despite the fact that he knew it would be his last games with the Barça shirt, he said that the Spanish-Montenegrin "has brought out the best of himself when things were worse for him and more there was noise around.
