There was a lot of expectation about the decision that the independent Euroleague judge had to make this Friday after the embarrassing brawl that the WiZink Center witnessed between the Real Madrid and Partizan squads, which ended with the game being suspended with 1m40s to go after the exclusion of 21 players. A historic sanction was expected for several players from both teams, protagonists of pictures as unfortunate as they were unprecedented. But the decisions made are little exemplary and much Solomonic, with the final four in Kaunas just around the corner.
The madridista Yabusele has been the worst stopped by the decision of the lawyer, a Dutchman who had worked in the Court of Arbitration for Sport and who this year has been released in office with the most lurid folder in the history of the Euroleague. The French power forward, whom his own family had to take to the locker room in the middle of a fight as he was out of his mind, completed a judo hold and injured former Barça player Dante Exum, an action that has gone beyond the world of memes to nestle in the black legend of sport. Yabusele has been banned for five games, the largest ban imposed by the EuroLeague. This means that he will not play in Europe again until next season, since even if Real Madrid came back from 0-2 in their series against Partizan, he could not be in the final four.
Of the rest of the players involved in the incidents, the judge has chosen to penalize only those who unequivocally committed some type of aggression. Kevin Punter, recipient of Llull's unsportsmanlike foul that caused the pitched battle, has lost two games for throwing a punch at Musa. The New York point guard, author of the triple on the buzzer that decided the first game, is a very sensitive casualty for Obradovic but he could play a game in the final four due to the kindness of the penalty received. The last two players sanctioned have been Gabriel Deck (Real Madrid) and Lessort (Partizan), both with one game, guaranteed their participation in the Kaunas event in the event of classification. The Argentine attacked Punter and the one from Martinique, Musa. On the sidelines, both Real Madrid and Partizan have been fined 50,000 euros. None of the sanctions is appealable.
Although both dressing rooms have tried to reduce the degree of tension after what happened for the next games, it is expected that on Tuesday at the Stark Arena in Belgrade there will be a hellish atmosphere with 20,000 wounded throats charging against Madrid during the third match from the series. In this sense, Obradovic, who knows the Serbian fans like no one else, already began from the press conference after the game on Thursday to try to reduce the tension, doing his bit to avoid possible incidents. "From now on I'm going to try to calm my people down, I want them to talk about basketball," wielded the Serbian technical laureate, horrified by what happened at WiZink, which left Partizan's brilliant triumph in Madrid in the background.
