Brawl Real Madrid-Partizan in the Euroleague: what happened – Corriere.it

The Far West, complete with saloon brawls, moved to the Wizink Center in Madrid where the second match of the Euroleague quarter-final was played on Thursday 27 April between Real and Partizan Belgrade. Let’s start with the end credits: after winning race-1, the Serbs were awarded – after essentially always controlling it with authority – also race-2. But the match was not finished: it was then declared concluded, with a table-approved score (95-80 for the guests), when pandemonium broke out 1’40” from the end. The reason for the game over lies in the fact that there were no longer the conditions available to remain on the parquet according to normal criteria.

All born from the inconsiderate attitude of Sergio Llull, a great veteran and one of the flagships of Real Madrid: evidently annoyed by the fact that the second match had been one-sided unlike the first, in which the Serbs had managed to impose themselves only after a wonderful head-to-head with the Spaniards, he started to provoke those of Partizan. The black and whites, led above all by the Australian ex Nba Dante Exum, had secured the 2-0 and almost certainly took a decisive step for promotion to the Final Four in Kaunas. Llull’s manner ignited a brawl that soon became shameful, something very similar to that of November 1990 between Varese and Virtus Bologna (that time it was the Bolognese Richardson who cold-punched Stefano Rusconi: there were 19 expelled, Virtus finished with only three men on the parquet). The brawl spread to bench players and executives and peaked when Guerschon Yabusele, French and player of his national team, took Exum from behind and overturned it with a wrestling move then collapsing on him with all his (considerable) weight. Exum has had serious damage: subsequent examinations have found the rupture of a tendon in the foot and also a battered shoulder.

Zelimir Obradovic, former coach (winning) of Real and now coach of Partizan, tried in the post-match to bring the situation back to the confines of civilization (Something like this must never happen again, it will damage the image of all basketball; I also have many friends here in Madrid, Real is a great club and when I face them I would like to talk only about basketball), but heavy disqualifications will be inevitable and are expected in the next few hours. But the main problem is that on Tuesday 2 May there will be race 3, the first of the two in Belgrade. And there the climate is already incandescent regardless…