IA modern sports hall is currently being built in Munich, which not only increases the possibilities for FC Bayern, but also the expectations. It is intended to “introduce a new era in Bavarian basketball”. That’s what Uli Hoeneß said recently. By summer 2024 at the latest, when the sports hall is supposed to be finished, he hopes that his club will be at the top of the Euroleague, the most important competition in European basketball, season after season. Actually, the hall should have already been opened. Then came construction problems. Then Corona came. Then came the war. And if you now see the start of the season, FC Bayern should probably be happy that the new era has not yet begun: Because in the current one, it is not even number one in Germany.
Alba and the lightness
This Thursday (8 p.m., Magentasport) FC Bayern will play for the first time this season against the team that beat them in the final series of the German championship in 2021 and 2022: Alba Berlin. The duel increases in the Euroleague. There, Berlin (three wins, three defeats) is currently ahead of Munich (one win, five defeats) than in previous seasons. “They have a lightness that we don’t have yet,” says Marko Pešić, Bayern’s basketball managing director. Why?
You have to deal with two expressions from American sports: “floor” and “ceiling”. floor and ceiling. Ground means the minimum level that a team achieves game after game in terms of talent and tactics. By ceiling, on the other hand, one means the highest level that a team can reach. The ground is very high in Berlin. Spaniards made sure of that: Himar Ojeda and Aíto, the sports director and the coach. They started in Berlin in 2016 and 2017 and created a gaming culture and system that established a high minimum level – and, it seems, a high level of sustainability. The level of play did not drop when regular players and coaches left the club.
Tabular and structural advantage
In the summer of 2021, assistant Israel González replaced his boss Aíto. The result: championship and cup victory in 2022, plus the successful start in the Euroleague. And if you compare that with FC Bayern, you can come to the conclusion: The advantage is not just a table, but a structural one.
Marko Pešić answers the phone on Tuesday. “You are in the sixth season in the system,” he says with a view to Berlin. “This is an advantage. That gives them a certain lightness.” It is only their third season in Munich under coach Andrea Trinchieri. With him, Munich was the only German team to reach the Euroleague play-offs in 2021 and 2022. And this season? “We’re still not scratching the surface of what we can achieve,” says Pešić. What does that mean for Bayern’s expectations this season? There are already indications that Munich’s minimum level will remain lower game by game than that of Berlin. However, it is far from impossible that their maximum level will increase.
