The 5 alternatives that Real Madrid manages to replace Mateo Kovačić

In an interview with MARCA, Mateo Kovacic surprised everyone with his statements in which he said he wanted to leave Real Madrid: "I would like to play more in Madrid because I love football and being on the pitch. Madrid is difficult to play as a starter, especially because I was very young, I understand the situation, but for that reason I think the best thing for me is that I go to another club where I have the opportunity to play regularly as a starter. I can have and what I want right now. "

Two of them, from the house:

The names of Llorente and Ceballos are the first to appear, they are already players of the white club and giving them a new role in the squad would be the best for them and the club. Last year they did not count for Zidane, but the departure of Kovacic could provide the minutes they need to keep growing.

Simple transfers:

Thiago Alacántara and Hector Herrera are the main candidates. Both would be a great price-quality option, one of them with a more defensive profile than the other, but the Mexican is an old acquaintance of Julen because he trained him in Porto.

Finally, the most difficult of all, would be Kanté. He would arrive with the galactic vitola and his signing could be very expensive for Real Madrid. It is the dreamed replacement, has exceptional quality and could even serve to relieve Casemiro, who does not have a weight replacement on the bench.

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Morning

The text was written some five years ago when this unchallenged fighter ended his career without fail. By all expectations and statistics for children growing up without parents, Zo has become a top basketball player and an even better man.

Someone who has managed to find the right time during youth and later on with their engagement and finances helps the thousands of poor and sick.
"Above this, there is only a paradise," said legendary coach Nolan Richardson after he and Alonzo Mourning got to the House of Fame on Monday. Nolan has suffered the greatest parental pain over the past couple of years, and his son and daughter died.

He could not share them with the honor that the basketball world has shown to the rare. There was no joy on his face. Alonzo has replaced a parent's home with orphanage since his 10 years. Some 11 years ago, he almost died.
Today he is a member of the Georgetown University board of directors, where he never missed a sports scholarship. Today he is a member of the House of Fame and how I say someone who, during his lifetime, "progressed more like a man than a basketball player and I was not bad in the hoops ..."

I never really enjoyed watching the centers. I realized the importance of a quality center for every team that wants a good result, but I did not sympathize with their game. Like someone who played a boss and who had a good shot, I always watched and worshiped good spells and mostly foreign players. I was very much respected by Jabbar, Parish, Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Neal and others.

I just wanted one - Alonzo Mourning.

Heart is not a statistical category. You can not measure the amount of heart and bravery in one person. If there were such an apparatus, I think it would be enough to measure Alonzo Mourning. I've been watching basketball for a long time and I have not seen a player I can say I have more hearts than Zo.

If you play against the team that Zo plays and if somehow you can do a racket you can be sure that Alonzo will be in the racket ready to unlock your shot or to make you try something that only looks at the recreation of the programmer. There is probably no center over which it was dunked several times. There is also no center that has unblocked opponents of dumbbells several times. Why?

Because in relation to some other Mourning centers, there was no choice. He went out to every penetration. It did not matter. Fines or strength. Dropping or laying. Alonzo always, but always trying to close the racket. That's how it is learned.

For the first time, I watched him while performing for Georgetown University in 1990. Georgetown was fond of dark shirts and those huge sweatshirts that Patrick Ewing first introduced. The match was against a group of stingy whites (from this perspective it was probably one of the Ivy League schools), and in the G'towna racket Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning stood and literally wiped off the opponents' silence. The shock of any team that has Mutomba and Mourning in the racket is normal.

(Later, I read that Georgetown fans set up the "Rejection Row" section and left the drawings for each blockade on the chairs below the knife).

Two people marked Alonz's life. Fannie Threet and John Thompson. Imagine a boy who is 10 years old and who after knowing that his parents divorce decides he wants to be adopted. Alonzo Sr. and his wife Julia were constantly fighting. Attention to the son was always present, but divorce was inevitable. The boy, angry at the fact that his parents divorced, decided not to live with them because he could not only live with a mom or dad. He testified in court that he wanted to be adopted.

"I had to go through a complete court process," Mourning said 20 years later. "I did not want to favor either mom or dad. I simply said my wish to the court and they continued to act in accordance with the law. I would rather leave our home than to continue such a life."

For the first year, Alonzo lived in orphanage. The court committed to give him a family to receive it. Several pairs came to the interview before Fannie Threet appeared. Former English language teacher and mathematician has adopted and raised over 40 children during their lifetime. Alonzo was one of them.

"I'll always remember the red brick house and the school billboard in the living room," Zo says. "She is the woman I still call Mom today." At school, Alonz was regularly mocked for short clothing because money for new things in his new family was not there. He was 13 years old and was 192 cm high. Up to 15 years it grew to 204 cm. His long sleeves pulled him to half the forearm, and his legs were like a subtle trainer.

Children, malevolent as they always talked to him was "dirty", "strange" and "Frankenstein." He was shot several times, but he mostly stayed silent. Alonz's great desire was to play American football. As he did not have the right footwear for that, he played in deep-fitting pharmacies.

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BAD BOYS

"Bad Guys" were reunited 10 days ago in Detroit and tomorrow will be broadcast a documentary film dedicated to this many-unique team.

Center that spurs the trophies and does not know how to play back to the basket. Beekeepers who mostly play on cuddly. A low wing that only plays back and only occasionally opens for a shot from distance. A winged center that jumps in attack and plays defensive. 10-Player Rotation. Rhythm control and offensive jump. Faul's and after judging ads. Tripping. Strikes in the face. Elbows in ribs. Hitting the hook. Provoking. All these were Detroit Pistons from the late 80s ...

The pistons were the first team in modern basketball that you could not describe through the statistics. A look at the archers' list did not offer an answer why they won. Their eyes were then trained to look for two, possibly three, who had 20 to 30 points. We got used to the head of the cells and the auxiliary staff. Detroit has changed that. The pistons were the first team in which the "carriers" of the game sacrificed their time and the number of silences in favor of the rest of the team. Ten players were threatened by the attack, and this team became a pesky strange statistic, where everybody gets 5 to 18 points, and the wins end up with 20 differences, even though the record does not offer anyone who is knocked out or is particularly in the mood.

The "Bad Guys" was made out of the field by the ingenious team manager Jack McClosky, who in the mid-80s could not make a mistake when the choice of players was in question. On the ground, Isiah Thomas was in charge of their mentality with the "small" support of Bill Laimbeer.

My best friend was the Pistons fan and especially Isiah Thomas. From Trieste he got a pair of Detroit Piston shirts dominated by Thomas's head. So we started to notice Thomas beside Magica, Bird and Jordan. Later, we also got a video cassette on which Isiah explains the secrets of his dribing. I do not have to point out that his dribing arsenal was perfect. We were trying to imitate it with the compelling commentary of "Thomas's promises !!" while Isiah throws on another parquet floor ...

"Tomas, you are a desperate player!" Next day comes Dan Dakich. Remember that name !!! Double is better than you !!! "

That is how Isiaha formed the Bobby Knight at the college. No matter what Isiah destroyed all opponents and that Dan Dakich in any universe would not be able to carry his handbag. Knight was a basketball perfectionist whose very often maestral performance of his player was not good enough. Bobby could always have been better.

Isiah Thomas had a competitive spirit very similar to Jordan's. In the sense that any opponent in the field would be killed if this meant a victory for his team. Thomas many say he was prepared to sell the soul of the devil just to be the champion. In the end it did, but he lost a lot of companions on his way to the title.

Thomas Pistons survived two heavy knockouts until the final conquest of the title. There are few teams that would stay all over after all. The defeat of Celtic in the final of the 1987 East. The fifth game in Boston. The pistons had the advantage of five seconds to the end and the ball. Thomas's addiction to Laimbeer was cut off by Bird and assisted Dennis Johnson for the winner basket. The pistons were fired in seven games. Boston went to the finals.

A year later Detroit finished the finals. They had 3: 2 lead and two games in Los Angeles to try to win the championship title. Isiah hardly hurt his ankle but refused to leave the game in one of the slimmest moves ever. He dropped to one leg and scored 25 points only in the third quarter, 43 in total for the match. The pistons had the title in their hands for 45 seconds to the end of the match. They did not endure. Loss 103: 102. They lost the finals in seven games.

Thomas watched the match for the first time only 15 years later. Earlier, he simply could not. He grinned in tears as he watched the match. He was the one who got the Pistonse's desire to win. He was the one who raised their aggression to the limit of scorn that felt to them the rest of the league. Isiah's tears 15 years later because of the defeat and the victim he has submitted, and his teammates speak of the desire of a man and a team to be the best ... at any cost ...

The title was the driving force of the entire Piston Team. They were so blinded by winning trophies that they went to the extreme.

Still, one thing nobody can ever argue with. They were really a team definition. Much more than any basketball team I know in the last 30 years. The unselfishness of this team was unreal. Almost altruistic. They were ready to kill each other in the field. Who did not think so had nothing to look for in that locker room. Thomas deliberately sacrificed his minute for Dumar and Vinnie Johnson. He sacrificed his number of silent consciously. An example was followed by others. Mahorn made Space Salley, Laimbeer James Edwards. Only Adrian Dantley was angry because he had to give up his minutes in favor of Dennis Rodman.

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ABA F4

The passage to the final brings salvation in the form of playing in Euroliga, which in three of the four participating teams means survival at the European level.
For Partizan, Red Star and Cibona, Euroliga's placement brings a great sigh of relief and gives answers to at least some questions regarding the future. Cedevita is the only team in this quartet that does not depend on state aid. They are the only ones who fail to say "ok, let's try again next year", which of course does not diminish their desire to end the best European competition.
Partizan is probably the most difficult financial season in the past 15 years. After the injury and the departure of some players the club simply did not have the adequate means to be competitive in the market.

Tepic, and especially Pavlovic, for their relationship with Partizana and the state of affairs were signed far below the real price and this was a big happiness for the most prolific club in the ABA league. Partizan will try to get Euroliga in front of its supporters, which in these circumstances means maintaining the continuity of the club's operation. So Partizan still remains interesting to the sponsors and that he can count on the country's help for placements. This means that talented players from the region and Europe can still look at Partizan as a club where they can develop playing games at the highest level.
Without Euros all this becomes very uncertain and questionable. Partizan is the only big club from the ex-yu space that has managed to keep the top in the past 20 years and is relatively pain-free at all times of the crisis.

Red Star went back to a big stage tonight last season. The current is probably the most successful in the past 15 years, to this very moment. Zvezda was the first in the ABA league (22-4), had four wins in the group stage of the Euroliga. In Eurocup, Dejan Radonjic's team was up to the semi-finals, where they failed to defend 11 points in the remainder.

Financial Crvena Zvezda is next to Cedevita the most stable club in the region, but so that Zvezda will need a new season in Euroliga. Everything else would be rated as absurd and step backwards.

Cibona has exceeded expectations this season, taking all into consideration but is probably the most uncertain future of these three teams anyway as they complete their performance in Belgrade. The chances of Dario Saric staying in Cibona are very small even if they elect the Euroliga. Help from Zagreb and the state for Cibona is given to a dump, plus the car's reward club will not get almost anything.

How to get on the market and bring some boost? Who are the talented boys from the youth drive who will get a chance? How will the club look next year and what will be its ambitions? All the questions that have no answer in Cibona ....

Cedevita is therefore the only club that does not depend on government, ministers, city officials or anything else ... Emil Tedeschi likes basketball and is ready to invest in this sport. The Cedevit training center is the best in the ABA league without any dilemma. Again, Cedevita has no fans, and regardless of the budget, the question remains whether they can keep this nucleus team on longer runs.

In this quartet, the only ones have the financial power to wait but the question is how long. To attract viewers needed results, trophies are needed, it is necessary to persuade young players to stay when they are looking for big European clubs when they have the opportunity to go to the NBA. No matter what the four-year plan for the development of the Cedevita team that has once tasted playing in Euroliga wants it there again as soon as possible ....

CRVENA ZVEZDA - CIBONA 80% - 20%

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MAGIC

After eight seasons in the league and a pile of individual awards, Paul and the ever-fought Clippers under the guidance of a top trainer are finally looking for a breakthrough in the NBA Finals. Their destiny is in the hands of someone who is at the same time the best and most respectable player and opponent.

Chris Paul has always had justification, so at least they say. His reputation until this season was mostly unripe. Here and there someone would have mentioned that he never went beyond the second round of the play-off, but that was it. Mainly emphasis was placed on his perfect dribbling, a preview of the game, unreally fast hands, a photographic memory of all the events on the ground.

The lack of team success was attributed to the inadequacy of the good team, the coaches who were not for the big dwindling, the bad situation in the club. In the past three years, you have somehow found out that Chris has been hurt by this, and that it is hardly difficult to prevent him from receiving merit if he is a good player and says that the fighter is again hard enough for something to go wrong, reporters and fans say " it's hard to play. "

This year, Clippers have made the best team in their history, and they have perhaps brought the best coach they ever had. The team is filled in all positions. They have the best assistant and thieving balls, the best jumper, they have great spiders. Blake Griffin has become one of the best NBA players. They are exceptionally fun to watch, and again this year they have substances in their game. What kind of teams are there that are not just knocking 10 alley-oops and inventing greetings on the showings but to win the victory first. So it was until Donald Sterling opened his mouth ....

Justin Gray is the legend of the Wake Forest, one of the famous universities at Tobacco Road, where the best basketball college in America is played. Gray has felt the destiny of many great colleges of archers who were too lazy to play a bettor in the NBA, yet they simply did not have the instinct and ability to play at the venue of the league's organizer. Europe is the next station required.

We met a couple of years ago in Greece and to questions like Chris Paul, Gray said, "Genius. Like every genius in it, there is a bit of insanity, a bit of obsession that can draw the worst out of a man. at all when the game starts. "

If it is to hit Julius Hodge's crotch, there is no problem. If we should openly offend Mike Krzyzewski in the middle of the match, that can be the case. If you have to kill the player by skipping in attack because they miss an open shot, who is guilty. If he had to go to Pau Gasol, who was silent on his head, he should know he did not do it. The game was played the way Chris wanted regardless of circumstances and coaches. So it was at least the appearance of Doca Rivers.

Paul is the best pick and roll player in the league. The ball was up to this season for an entire eternity. He turns once, he does not like what he sees, returns back and forth again. How did the old order in the New Orleans Arena explain it plastic? "Chris is outdoors on the field, beautiful and cultured. A small man is always on the pitch, who is discussing with everyone and playing ..."

It is discussed with everyone except with a direct guard ... "I never provoke a player who keeps me, I do not need that." I worked hard to become a good player, implying that I can score against anyone. "

Chris Paul is fucking in the field. I guess differently and could not have been a player who was always the last in the youth or was not elected at all.

When you have 157cm height in the second intermediate team you just do not beat for your services. Paul became famous in America after a tragic event. His dad Nathaniel Jones was the first African-American owner of a petrol pump in North Carolina. This is the 60's when racial disasters in all parts of the United States were fired. Nathaniel held his business and was the person who enjoyed the respect. Prior to his 61st birthday, he was killed in his car while he was squeezing the groceries. Several teenagers tried to rob him. He was beaten up on that occasion and his heart did not endure. Paul's father found the corpse.

At the auspices of his aunt Paul, in Nathaniel's honor at the first next match, he scored 61 points for every year of his life. Then he deliberately missed the free throw and came out of the game with the ovations ...

Only in the third middleweight Chris Paul did it up to 178 cm in height. His great love was the University of North Carolina, but it was not interesting to them. He decided to stay close to home. To play where Tim Duncan played. He was trained by Wake Forest, Skip Prosser.

"Training does not guarantee perfection, only perfect training guarantees perfection," Prosser, who has always been a lonely person, has often spoken. The players were quoted by Niče, Šekspira, Čerčila. By the way, I blinked out that Prosser had an answer to each of his many questions.

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POP

Each trainer comes to a time when years of stress, nervousness, sleepless nights, bad food, tablets, alcohol and cigarettes do their job. For most of the top trainers, nothing was easy. The effort is enormous, and the reward is often not in line with the efforts made.
As one great master of the job told me, "When I finally became a European champion, after those initial minutes and two hugs and congratulations I looked around and thought, 'Fuck, is that all this? Is this the reward for all the nervousness, the heartburn, the insomnia and the torment you feel after the defeat? "They spit on you and criticize fools who have no idea of ​​basketball. It is a feeling of a feeling that makes it all worth it.Whenever I recall this period, I say that the suffering you pass through a season of top basketball is much higher than the moment you are at the top. Satisfaction often does not exist or you have to suffer yourself to have it ... ".

Phil Jackson did not endure. Stents, artificial hips and knees. Don Nelson has always had that "Let's have a drink ..." attitude and he always realized there were more important things in life, but he was also his way of choosing pressure.

Pat Riley did all the wonders again, and when Shaquille O'Neal started to hit him, he realized that he did not need such things in his life. He chose the best possible location for life and from the shadows helped Eriku Spoelstri. Better to have tanned and enjoy the light meals than to spend 14 hours in the office.

You just have to look at Thomas Thibodeau's face and see what a dedicated trainer looks like and a man who steadily thinks of tactics and tries to improve his team. Pupils to the floor, non-existent social life, no women, no children ...

That's what Larry Brown once called: "Unhappy love for basketball." Everyone who really loves this sport can be found in the words of a somewhat crazy Browna.

Larry's son is Gregg Popovich and he was exactly infected with the basketball virus of a former coach of the sport-minded Pomona Pitzer University and completely separated from the army.

Popovich passed an aviation school. The old story says he was supposed to be a CIA agent in Moscow, resigned in Langley, passed basic training, and spent some time acting as an agent on Turkey's border with Iran and Syria but that was all ....

Larry Brown raised a bunch of good coaches, and he did not stay long anyway, because he was so perfectionist that no one could handle it for more than two years.

He corrected all the existing and non-existent disadvantages of his players, interrupted the children's basketball to show them a fairly low posture, each day made five players and changed their mind. Again, um Larry Browna was created for basketball.

One of his friends long ago said, "He would make five planks a functional five." The champion was at all levels. He conquered the losers in the winners and then left. Whether it's Kansas, Detroit Pistons, LA Clippers. I caught myself laughing at seeing the SMU University becoming a serious team this season after it was over 20 years old. That's Larry Brown.

Gregg Popovich had absorbed all the basketball skills of Browne but learned something that Brown had never had - with his 70 plus years - of patience. Struggling to break his style on longer runs, to draw the maximum out of the average players, to overpower Brown's greatest manners-the desire to constantly change the team's team ...

Gregg Popovich followed Browna to San Antonio after Kansas, then assisted Don Nelson in the Warriors, and then returned to San Antonio where he became a general manager under various circumstances. His fans despised him after he had rid of then popular Bob Hilla and put himself as a chief coach ...

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TIMI

Now it's clear. Since retiring Michael Jordan, no one had a more successful career than Team Duncan. Quite silent, Timmy has compiled 17 consecutive seasons of victory, title, hard work, looking at his job, and some individual acknowledgments that do not matter. His only interest was that his team played well and did it all the way. A fake champion, 5-1 in the final, his team never missed a plej-of. Successful? The most successful ... Tony Rutland. I was waiting for him to finally look at the Wake Forest.

Tony played high school with Allen Iverson. We all shivered to the point of Iverson, and Rutland was the second part of that killer godfather. Somewhere during Duke's '96, I first saw Tim Duncan for the first time. They were waiting for the ball to go in, Duncan was in a big shot, and the Duke fans flicked screaming: "Spock, Spock, Spock."

The American commentator explained: "Duke's fans see Tim Duncan with a figure from the" Star Trek. "This guy from the Virgin Islands, who is the elective subject of psychology, rarely shows emotions during the game, yet Dick, many think of him as the best center at the ACC conference . "

Then the legendary Dick Vitale fired: "But what a bee!" He started to play basketball very late, but no matter how he is, he's already technically fully trained for the position of the center. that moment and it's always great in the jump and .... "it took another three minutes ...

Tony Rutland is a policeman today in Atlanta. Being a shield from this team, the extremely talented Jerry Braswell is a fitness trainer. Loren Woods (I believe you remember him from Ephesus), the guy who was supposed to be Tim Duncan after Team Duncan, ends his career career in Beirut. Tim Duncan continues to ride ...

San Antonio I remember from the time when Rod Strickland was the first, and Terry Cummings was a real option at the wing center position. David Robinson was probably best basketball player with Pippen ever, but the competition in those years was too strong. There were still hilarious unbelievably talented but troublemaker Lloyd Daniels, Willie Anderson and all-powerful Vinny Del Negro. Simply, while Duncan did not show up, Spurs could not do anything.

They say the team takes the outlines of their best player. That's how San Antonio generally looked like Duncan. Methodically, constantly, at moments sterile, mostly unattractive, but most importantly - they ended up doing business. Duncan always came back and always pushed himself and his teammates forward. More likely you can not search for it. Due to Duncan, Spurs have always been in the game for the past 17 years. Titles, first round defeats, defeats and wins a single ball, but 17 years of being every year to be somewhere or to be the best ... there are not many players who can bring you such results.

San Antonio has never defended the title, but winning five pieces in almost two decades and each of these years being a party participant, that's for absolute respect. Everyone can dance for one summer. Being successful at the NBA level for 17 years, constantly having more defeats than defeats, being able to find the motive of each summer, to do the same again and to do it well. It is the highest quality of Tim Duncan.

All this year, the man managed to get in touch with the players in the best possible way - whether they were Stephen Jackson, Malik Rose, Danny Green or Patty Mills - to find the chemistry in the field and make it all work. Of course, all the other important people in that organization have great credit. But when someone laughs 12 pounds in the 36th year, after four winning titles, when he changes his run for the fourth decade to reduce pressure on his knees, after all four years ago he leaves the team to two more finals and another championship titles - how to explain it differently than basketball's love?

Duncan took less money than real value to make the team better, Duncan switched wordlessly to the new style of Spurs game. Even in the best days, Duncan did not talk about "the will of the winner" as it did on the ground. His leadership did not imply the abuse of a player to see everyone, nor when no one is watching. Duncan will give you any flaws that you can see in a nice way, which if you want to understand, you can. If you do not, well ... there are those who will.

As a player I never loved him, it's just so. Nothing in his game made me excited. In the memory, I only had two kits for her throughout her career. Shak down in Shaq in 2004, who overturned Fisher and the Troika against Phoenix in the playoffs six years ago. It remained as if in a semicircular silence of a table, a half-roller rolling on the rim, a point from the volleyball. And so up to the number of 25,000. Again, none of the NBA players I've ever had a chance to meet has left the impression of a more normal man. If he is not in a dress shirt and a sleeveless t-shirt (Timmy is wearing a sleeveless shirt) Timmy is in three numbers with a bigger shirt and a mandatory backbone. That's it.

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