Real Madrid

Another year comes to an end in Vistalegre. Real Madrid's basketball team will end the year having laid the groundwork for a successful run in 2009. The team has had great and sad moments in 2008, but most importantly, the connection it has with its fans is stronger than ever.

Real Madrid won the ULEB Cup, the ACB League and defeated Toronto Raptors in 2007, raising the bar for 2008. Pressure didn't affect them and they managed to set set a new record in the regular season by losing only five games.

They also reached the Top 16 of the Eurolegaue, but lacked determination in key fixtures. They lost against Maccabi Tel Aviv in Vistalegre, which forced them to win in Athens against Olympiacos, which they failed to do an were therefore eliminated from the Euroleague. A similar thing happened in the ACB playoffs. The Whites were favourites to win the title, but they lost in the first round of the knock-out stage against Unicaja.

The Club decided to keep Joan Plaza at the helm of the team despite the lack of titles, and Raül López, Sergio Llull, Louis Bullock, Alex Mumbrú, Axel Hervelle and Felipe Reyes were joined by new signings Massey, Hosley and Pepe Sánchez. Marko Tomas returned to the squad after a great year at Fuenlabrada and Tunçeri, Smith, Pelekanos, Sekulic and Papadopoulos -the latter half-way through the new season- left the team. Lazaros has been recently replaced by Tomas van den Spiegel.

The project didn't change, but priorities did. The goal this season is to be as strong as possible in key moments of the campaign and in order to achieve this the team had some trouble at the start of the season before they got into better shape. The Whites are excited about 2009 and hungry for titles.