EHF Champions League The Barcelona captain faces it in his last season
He could play a last in June if Barcelona maintains its line in Europe
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Lat the decision of captain of Barcelona and the Spanish handball team, Ral Entrerros, of extending his career one more season after the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games takes on all its meaning when he is about to play one of the great events that were suspended by the coronavirus pandemic, the Final Four of the Champions League.
Bara earned the right to play her as the leader of their group in the league phase, and opts for its tenth European Cup that resisted it in the four previous editions. An early climax this time in the middle of the season. “It is a different Final Four for all that it implies, because it corresponds to last season, but it has become a goal of this year’s squad,” recalls Ral. “We are very excited to live it and get such an important title even though it is a very different situation from the one we are used to.”
The dates of this Final Four, December 27 and 28, they overlap with the matches that Spain play in the Euro Cup just before the World Cup. Commercial and economic interests put the physical integrity of the players at risk, and some very relevant have spoken out against playing the World Cup in Egypt. “The current situation has not done more than compress the calendar even more. The key is to have the necessary rest to face the competitions in the best possible way,” says Entrerros.
Underlying this predisposition to be present in all great battles is the fact that his last season, a kind of extension that earned the right to play after agreeing with Bara. “I am saying goodbye to something that I have been doing for many years and this is not easy,” he emphasizes. “When you are faced with the prospect that it is the end, it is still strange. I am experiencing a lot of sensations of all kinds throughout this season. I feel privileged to be able to compete in such a strange year, in which Many people cannot make their normal lives. But I also see empty pavilions, and I realize that it is not a normal farewell, as anyone would wish. I try to live the present to the fullest, with many goals ahead and I hope I can have a nice ending “.
Photo: Francesc AdelantadoIn the Final Four, that Hosting Cologne since 2010, it has earned the fame of being the greatest event in world handball thanks to the quality of the teams that play it and the atmosphere that is created in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, always packed with its 19,250 seats. This time it will be a Final Four with a mute, almost ghostly in that huge venue, no matter how much the EHF tries to cover it with technological pyrotechnics. A very present circumstance among the protagonists. “It will be a very significant change, to go from playing with an extraordinary environment, to doing it alone. A strange feeling”, assumes the Barça captain. “It is about concentrating on the 40×20, abstracting from the cold environment and being the ones who warm up the game,” he proposes.
Ral will have two chances to lift the new Champions League trophy. Bara has a 21-game record unbeaten and also seems to be heading towards the 2020-21 Final Four. “Hopefully. It’s what we all consider at the beginning of a season like this. We know that we are going to have the opportunity to play it in December, and we have a good line of results to be in the next one. Playing two Final Four will be extraordinary,” acknowledges the Asturian player, distinguished this week with the silver medal of the city of Gijn for his brilliant sports career.
Behind the With the withdrawal of the other Barcelona captain, Vctor Toms, motivated by a heart ailment, Entrerros remains the only Barça player to play for Bara for the eighth time in a Final Four -Aron Palmarsson has done it with three different clubs-, which his team won in 2011 and 2015. “Throughout my career, and I talk about the last years at Barcelona, each competition is an objective in itself, including the Final Four. That is why I face it the same as other times, but at the same time you think that it can be the Latest experience I have in Cologne, as well as in other tracks or other tournaments. You have to find a balance in all this and the best way to do it is to focus on doing my job as I have always done. “
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