• ACB. A tournament with 12 teams in a unique venue

It will remain as a historical rarity, as one more anecdote of these unusual days in which the coronavirus pandemic collapsed absolutely everything. An encounter wandering forever in the limbo of basketball, without outcome, without winner or loser. The Montakit Fuenlabrada - Herbalife Gran Canaria , the longest match in the world ... because it will never have a final honk.

February 1, 2020, Saturday afternoon. Still, the rumors of the virus that plagued China seemed like distant winds, and all competition was proceeding normally, oblivious to the storm surge that was arriving in silence. It was the third quarter of the match (minute 25:04) of day 20 in the Fernando Martín de Fuenlabrada pavilion , when Emilio Pérez Pizarro, the main referee, stumbled slightly at the bottom of the track. "He looked a little and verified that the parquet had been lifted," recalls Javi Beirán, one of the players who were on the pitch at those already unique moments.

That happened while we defended. The game continued and Stan Okoye , who had to shoot all three free throws, was missing in the other basket , because he was executing a triple. And that's when they started talking and decided to stop the meeting, because they saw that it was impossible, that it was sinking a lot and we were at risk of injury, "recalls the world champion forward from his confinement in Gran Canaria.

The floor of the Fernando Martín had bulged, which curiously had been remodeled the previous summer after many years, as they point out from the Madrid club. After briefly deliberating Pérez Pizarro, Oyón and Padros, communicating it to Paco García and Fotis Katsikaris (the coaches) and informing the ACB delegate, Ricardo Salguero, they decided to suspend the meeting. Because it was not possible to repair the parquet sheets at the time: to replace the affected boards it was necessary to remove the extra tier from the bottom located behind that basket. So no one could have foreseen that those remaining 14 minutes and 56 seconds would be like Kafka's 'The Castle', an unfinished novel. Due to the twists and turns of fate, they were never going to fight.

The first option that was considered was to complete it quickly, just a few days later, but then the Copa del Rey de Málaga took place and, although neither team participated, it was not possible due to lack of referees, television, etc. Later it was established Wednesday, March 18, at 8:30 p.m., as the date for the resumption. But only a few days before the Government was going to decree the state of alarm after the scourge of the coronavirus in Spain.

And, after the resolution of the Endesa League Assembly on Monday 20, it is already known that, whatever happens, the Fernando Martín crash will never be resolved. Because, in the unlikely event of returning, the ACB would return with a final phase of 12 teams at a single venue . Gran Canaria would be in it, Fuenla, despite occupying the penultimate place at the time of suspension of the tournament, will not descend. It will be a pending issue for eternity.

There are not too many examples of anything similar in the history of sports. There were handfuls of games postponed, some unforgettable like that of February 1986 between Barcelona and Real Madrid, when the rain of coins in the Palau forced the last 14 seconds to be played behind closed doors a few days later.

The Greek Cup semifinal of last year between Panathinaikos and Olympiacos never resumed again when Piraeus withdrew at halftime in protest of the refereeing. But then there was a winner, since the team then coached by David Blatt, was directly eliminated from the competition.

Nor was there an end to a tennis match that went down in the history books, although in this case the reason for its lack of outcome was quite different. On February 20, 1955, in the final of the Lyon tournament, Budge Patty and Jaroslav Drobny decided to leave at the same time, exhausted after four hours of insufferable equality. The chair judge was forced to announce two winners; the standing ovation of the French public lasted 10 minutes.

By the way, in Fernando Martín the Fuenlabrada was winning (41-36) . "We will get together in 10 years and solve it," jokes Beirán.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Real Madrid
  • Barcelona
  • China
  • Spain
  • sports
  • Coronavirus

InterviewFrancisco Reynés: "Predicting how this year will evolve is premature, impossible"

Chain of solidarityThe high-flying menus for those most in need are launched

Champions League 2019 - 2020A pact for the jewel of Europe: play the Champions like a World Cup