I don't follow Barça Basquet that much, but why does it seem that Barça Basquet is somewhat underperforming in the EuroLeague. I mean 2 EuroLeagues is not bad but it just feels underwhelming, especially considering they finished runners up like 6 other times.
We are just bottlers. And to make it worse it usually happened against Madrid.
Since we last won the Euroleague in 2010...
2012 SF vs Olympiacos - lost by 4 points in the end but Olympiacos were in front for entire game (IIRC we only led once late in 1st half). They were controlling that 2-7 point difference, we had chances but never took them.
2013 SF against Madrid - we led 61-52 with 7 minutes left then Madrid finished the game with a 22-6 run. We then also lost 3rd place game against CSKA Moscow for 1 point.
2014 SF against Madrid - after close first quarter we were totally destroyed and lost by 38. No comment needed.
2021 final against Anadolu Efes - we led by 10 points early in Q2 but then Shane Larkin and Micic started to play. Still kept a close game until last 2-3 minutes and could have won but tbf I think Efes was just a better team.
2022 SF vs Madrid - we led 47-34 at start of 2nd half but were already behind after Q3. At least they lost the final against Efes for one point but tbf they made up for it when they won in a similar fashion next year against Olympiacos.
2023 SF against Madrid - similar story, we were up 47-39 midway through Q3 before RM made a 15-0 run
Understand it from a financial perspective but sporting wise was a mistake to let Saras go. Yeah, we didn't won but at least with him we were guaranteed to qualify for the Final Four. And worse thing was to replace him with a total rookie coach like Grimau. And Penarroya is not much better either.