The Endesa League has released the complete schedule for the 2022-23 season. It will be a special campaign for Bàsquet Girona, a club founded in 2014 by a Spanish basketball legend like Marc Gasol. The team that leads the NBA champions with the Toronto Raptors from the offices and from the track will enjoy their first year in the elite and will debut against an entire Real Madrid team at home on September 28.
The rise of Girona in these years was meteoric: in 2017 the senior team was founded, which began to compete in the EBA League; in their second year they were already in LEB Plata; and in 2021, in their first season in LEB Oro, they announce the signing of Marc Gasol and certify promotion to the ACB in the playoff final against Movistar Estudiantes. Their debut in the elite could not be more symbolic and special, since they will play against the defending champion, Real Madrid. As if that were not enough, they will receive him in Fontajau, which will be a local basketball party.
Barça, meanwhile, will debut away against Gran Canaria on September 30. Sarunas Jasikevicius' men want to redeem themselves from the painful failures of last season, both in the ACB and in the Euroleague. Relative failures, since in the national competition they reached the final of the playoffs, where they fell against Real Madrid (3-1), and in Europe they reached the Final Four, also to be surpassed by the white team in the semifinals. However, their theoretical line-up of favorites and the fact that the defeats occurred against the staunch rival aggravated the bad feelings of the azulgrana, who have been well reinforced this summer to try to consummate their revenge.
The first classic of the season will have to wait until 2023, specifically until January 2 at the WiZink Center, and the second will be played on April 16 at the Palau Blaugrana, one month before the end of the regular season, predictably with much in Game. Real Madrid faces a different season, since the architect of one of the most successful periods in the team's history, Pablo Laso, will not be on the bench. In addition, the controversial forms of his departure shook the entity. We have to see how the players adapt to Chus Mateo's slate, until now Laso's assistant and who already led the team in the ACB final due to the coach's heart problems, and how the Madrid native assumes the responsibility of his new position and to be the successor of a club legend.
