Jonathan Barreiro has spoken to the press in the minutes prior to the training session that the entire team had this morning at the Palacio de los Deportes in Murcia to finalise preparations for the Endesa Super Cup semi-final against UCAM Murcia tonight at 9:30 p.m. (live on Movistar + Deporte and on Unicaja Baloncesto Radio from Le Grand Café).
Barreiro stressed that “we have played against UCAM Murcia many times, we know each other very well and in the end it will be a very nice match for the spectators, which will be decided by small details, a 40-minute match in which we will have to give our all and above all play our game, which is what we have been doing all preseason.”
Regarding which of the two teams can take on the role of favourite, he said that “it is complicated because, as I told you before, I think it will be a match that will be decided by small details and surely in the last minutes. In the end, it is true that we come with a good feeling of winning a title, but UCAM Murcia also has a great team, just like us, and they are also playing at home… So it will be a very tough match that will surely be decided in the final moments.”
Regarding Unicaja’s aspirations in this tournament, the Galician forward has acknowledged that “in the end we come to each tournament to do our best and take the title. Last year we lost the final against Real Madrid, against a great team that was the fair winner of the Super Cup, but this year I think we are much better than last year, with desire and enthusiasm to be able to fight for it, but in the end you have to take it game by game. Today we have a very difficult one, against a team of our level as well, so it is going to be very tough, but well, the enthusiasm is intact and we will go to fight for it.”
He was also asked about the team’s positive trajectory in recent years, to which he replied that “I think there is a lot of work behind it, by the coaches, by the people at the top, for this team to work and we focus on giving our best. In the end we know what it means to wear the Unicaja shirt, it is a club that tries to fight for all possible titles and we are going to do it this time too.”
Finally, Barreiro answered the question of whether there is any pending score from last year, to which he acknowledged that “I think that Unicaja and Murcia have a very nice rivalry. We are two teams, as I told you before, very similar, that will surely fight to be at the top, so I think it is nice, both for us and for the fans, that there is that rivalry between us.”
