Performance woes follow Real Madrid to basketball too

As defending champions, Los Blancos are having an inauspicious start to the season

The football team of Real Madrid is in crisis, but so is the basketball team, which is the reigning champion of Europe.

The Los Blancos are in the final position in a group of six teams in the Euroleague (European Championship). The first four continue in the Top 16 and there are three matches remaining.

Real Madrid need to win all three of these games in order to raise their possibilities of qualification. It is strange that they are in this situation as the Spaniards, in the last few years, hadn't disappointed their fans with so many bad games in the first months of a season. Maybe one or two, but five losses, as they have now, it is something rare.

Of course, Real Madrid can bounce back and return to their good days very quickly because they have quality, but their next matches are very difficult: at home against the Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce, who have the best coach ever in the European Basketball, Zeljko Obradovic, versus the new giants Bayern at Munich and Strasbourg in Madrid, a French team that has a very clever coach, Vincent Collet, who won the 2013 Eurobasket with the national team of France.

It is strange that the football team and the basketball team of Real Madrid face crisis at the same time, but since it concerns two different sports, then you can only call it a coincidence. Right now, Real Madrid have three consecutive losses in Euroleague and are in a very unpleasant situation.

In football, it is said that their manager Rafa Benitez is to blame, but in basketball the coach Pablo Laso has much more experience being in charge and has led the team to successes, so they can’t be compared equally.

One of the reasons that can be found for Real Madrid’s basketball mess is that their stars aren't performing as well as the previous years. The MVP of last year's Euroleague final four and former NBAer of Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings and Philadelphia 76ers, 35-year-old Andres Nocioni, underperforms , while ex-Portland Trailblazers, New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings point guard, Sergio Rodriguez, is not at his best either.

Of course, it might only be a bad spell for them and they are about to recover soon. Besides, you don't expect a team to be in their best so early in the season, but Real Madrid are in danger of losing a huge title due to their current poor form.

Whatever the conditions are, everyone expects Real Madrid to react, even in the last moment, so logic says that Real Madrid will manage to survive. What will happen if not? It will be one of the worst campaigns of a Euroleague Champion team the year that the NBA Champions, Golden State Warriors, broke the consecutive wins start record in their league.

This will open the road for another team to be able to win the title, maybe CSKA Moscow, who since their last trophy in Madrid 2008, were very close but have had unbelievable obstacles in front of them.

If there was another team in this situation, then one might think that it might be an irreversible case, but Real Madrid are always capable of achieving even the most incredible miracle, so they are not done, at least not yet.

The last year that Real Madrid won Euroleague, they started with a 17-3 record, 13-0 in the 2-13/14 finals, and 16-4 in the 2012/13 finals, whereas this year, they are a dismal 2-5. The difference is chaotic and it is easy for one to understand that something is not right with this year’s Real Madrid.

They have tried a lot in the last years to win Euroleague, managing to have success in 2015 and perhaps this term means the end of an era. But Real Madrid is Real Madrid and at any moment they can return to the greatest level.

In the Spanish league, things are different: Real is second with a 6-1 record, along with Barcelona and Laboral Kutxa, with Valencia being undefeated. Since not much is lost yet, Madrid have the chance to find the right direction again.