• San Pablo Burgos: a comeback for history

These days Burgos ran out of San Pedro festivals, but there is no lack of reasons to celebrate. The pride of the city is its basketball team, which stars in one of the sporting exploits of the year. "From the news that comes to me, today more than 500 fans will go down to Valencia, so that the players notice their presence. Under normal circumstances, we would not fit in La Fonteta", announces Félix Sancho, the young president of the 'miracle', the guy that not even five years ago, overnight, he put together a team that this Sunday (5:00 p.m., #Let's go) will compete against the almighty and favorite Barcelona the first semifinals of the ACB in its history.

To understand San Pablo Burgos you have to go back to CB Tizona, which continues to exist today (next season it will return to LEB Oro, the second category of national basketball), but that in 2015, after the third consecutive promotion frustrated to ACB by the 'impossible' economic canon, he decided to "step aside". So, Sancho, owner of the San Pablo real estate agency, along with a group of local businessmen, decided to catch that wave of fury for the baskets of a city that in the mid-1990s was orphaned by elite soccer, after the fall into hell. from the mythical Burgos de El Plantío. "Pepe Sáez granted us a place of grace at LEB Oro and in 12 days, in August, we assembled a team from scratch. We had no balls to train and now I sit next to Florentino Pérez in the box. We had to take us water the players to training and now I see myself in Switzerland at a meeting of the European FIBA ​​competitions. It has been frantic, "explains the president, the process of how a club that competed at the provincial level, CB Miraflores, arrived to fight to be the new TDK.

After promotion in 2017, the first two seasons in the Endesa League were already to feel pride. Not only because of the results of the team led by a man of the house, Diego Epifanio (14th and 11th) , especially because of the sensation of a massive feeling for the team and social phenomenon in the Castilian city. La Furia, a hobby that fills the Colosseum (almost 10,000 spectators on average) afternoon after afternoon or that travels en masse to leave WiZink himself speechless with his spirits.

From ambition and humility, Sancho made a painful decision last summer, but key to today's successes. He changed the esteemed Epifanio, "a guy from the house", and went for the fashion technician. And with Joan Peñarroya on the bench and signings that leave their mark - "we can boast that the players do not want to leave here" -, he debuted in a big way in Europe (he is classified for the Final at 8 of the FIBA ​​Champions League, to be solved in October), grazed the ticket for the King's Cup (it was eighth before the cut) and, after the break due to the coronavirus, which has been reduced by the absence of its American star, former NBA Earl Clark and the Alex Barrera's injury (before they had lost Tokoto, Stevic or Huskic) have led a feat "to tell the grandchildren."

After going back to Andorra and that Valencia did not fail against Gran Canaria - eliminating in passing Real Madrid whom the Burgos had surprised on the second day -, the euphoria broke out on Friday at the hotel in which the players have concentrated since last day 10. "They are very tired, we have a very short rotation. Only Mirotic's salary is all our budget . If we can get hooked on the party ..." reflects the president, who has just put Peñarroya on the phone. "I have told him: 'As you win, you change the bench the same'. We are not going to sell it cheap", he jokes about the boom of his coach, who has known how to squeeze and convince a squad that he reinforced with Pablo Aguilar just before the tournament to fight for each of the matches in Valencia and that this Sunday dreams of glory at the Fonteta: "This only happens once every so often."

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