2023-08-05 06:30:58
A season in the third category of basketball is always complicated, but next year, the Women’s League 2 it will be with an extra. one change in the competition system has assumed a drastic increase in travel distances by the Catalan teams. Thus, if the GEiEG he had to travel around 2,500 kilometers in the last campaign, in the next they will be 14.000. More than five times more. The differentiating fact is three trips to the Canary Islands, but if you look at the other group, B, the Tordera will accumulate more than 6,200km of travelwhich are not few.
“We came out in better standing, but cloth”, comments the coach of the Uni subsidiary, Mark Delemus. He avoids, in addition to the two teams from Tenerife and Lanzarote, trips to Galicia, Extremadura or León. Mark Serranew group coach, says that “it’s one madnessI looked at the calendars and I think we travel more than Uni, without counting Europe». Indeed, the Spar Girona, two divisions above, does not reach the already considerable 12,000 km. For two clubs of less scope, the first alarm went off in the economic aspect. “We still have to finish it, but we have to do it the budget put on as little weight as possible”, explains Serra, also warning that “in the end, on a day-to-day basis, everything will depend a lot on the weekly plans and the regularity of flights, which in the Balearic Islands is easier due to the frequency but in other places we will have to see the availability and if it has to be done at night». In turn, el Tordera, novice to the category, search help “everywhere, because the costs of a League 2 team last year and this year have nothing to do”, says Delemus. “It’s a commotion, and that’s why we’re doing partner and sponsorship campaigns to alleviate it.”
GEiEG and Tordera already know the calendar of a large-scale League 2
The coach of Uni’s subsidiary, however, admits that the change “was an open secret”, and that “the FEB was already talking about it for complaints from the other group». The Catalan teams were concentrated in a tie because of the proximity they had, and the Galician or Leonese teams were placed with the Canaries. now, the new regulations mean that, if there are more than 50% of clubs from the same autonomous community, they must be divided between the two frames. In this way, the most benefited entities can allocate a large part of their budget to contracts that, financially, were previously more complicated for them. That’s why, as Serra rightly states, “we will meet teams with big budgets and competitive intentions to go as high as possible”. In group A, the GEiEG is Clarinos de Tenerife, who last year were relegated from Liga 1 and sold the Challenge place (2nd) to Sant Josep Obrer. Other tough rivals will be Valle, who were relegated to League 2, or La Coruña, who were on the verge of promotion last year.
Adapt to change
That the catalog of rivals has opened up so much implies, in addition, sports affections. What worries the two coaches from Girona the most is how their players will respond to the trips. “We will have more kilometers and less recovery time, they will have to get used to this pace and we will have to adapt the training to it”, affirms Serra, remarking that, as if that were not enough, “it is a very regular calendar, where we hardly stop outside of Christmas and New Year’s Eve”. For the Tordera, the longest trip last year was to Tarragona, “which we did by car, and it didn’t affect us physically or mentally, we’ll have to see how it affects us”, says Delemus.
Both coaches also note the fact that these are not professionals, but people who have studies and a job where they have to perform. In this sense, it will be key to deal well with mental fatigue which, for Tordera, “is all an unknown”. “What worries me the most is the rest of the players, with the agreement that they have a daily life and a personal life where to fit recoveries to be at 100%”, adds the group member.
Another consequence of the new competition system will be the fact of facing a more unknown rivals. Coming from the Copa Catalunya, Delemus was well versed in it, because in the Copa Catalunya the games are not televised, and you had to be guided by deep readings of the statistics or, although it was complicated because the schedules often clashed, go to see the games . Now, since all the matches are televised by Canal FEB, it will be “easier”. At GEiEG, with more experience in League 2, they had already seen “a good number” of players from other teams, so they will have more work to do when it comes to analyzing new rivals. This is, however, a factor that “motivates” them, because they always like to compete and test themselves against different teams.
Well advanced templates
In Girona, the team is already closed with the renewal of Anna Jòdar and, in Tordera, they are waiting for the couple of juniors that Uni can contribute and the resolution of the cas Kendall, trans player excluded from the promotion play-offs but who participated in the regular league. In this way, both clubs face a season that Delemus sees as a “prize to the players, who must enjoy competing”.
Regarding the issue of the calendar, he would be more worried if it were the GEiEG: “His is a bomb and the impact must be very big, but I trust that it has a powerful base and resources to deal with it”. In the end, Serra closes“everything that is basketball and outside I like and motivates”. The spirit of competition will not be lacking anywhere, and it is from here that the teams from Girona will begin to build in League 2 on the largest scale of recent times.
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