Four Stops Before the Etihad: Madrid's Master Plan
Scariolo's Real Madrid faces a four-game preseason slate — Breogán, Baskonia, Tenerife and Unicaja — with one clear goal: arriving at the EuroLeague Super Cup debut on September 18 with their rebounding and shooting identity already firing.
Hezonja
Campazzo
OkekeSome teams use August to find themselves. Real Madrid uses it to remind themselves who they are. The road map to the EuroLeague Super Cup is already locked in: four tune-ups over three weeks and an opening tip on Friday, September 18, at Etihad Arena.
Madrid's preseason isn't a tryout — it's a launchpad: four tests of rising difficulty to arrive at the Etihad with a proven identity already back in gear.
- Four games in three weeks
- Nobody rebounds better in Europe
- A starting five that knows the playbook cold
Four Stops — Two of Them 24 Hours Apart
The schedule opens on August 29 against Río Breogán in Pontevedra, continues on September 5 versus Kosner Baskonia in León, and closes with a demanding back-to-back: La Laguna Tenerife on the 11th in San Pedro de Alcántara and Unicaja on the 12th in Málaga.
That finish is no accident. Playing on back-to-back nights — and against two of the toughest programs in Spanish basketball — forces Sergio Scariolo to stretch his entire rotation. Our read: it's the most honest way to simulate, six days out, the format of a tournament that is decided in a single weekend.
An Identity to Reactivate, Not Reinvent
What exactly does Madrid need dialed in by September 18? Their most recent European numbers paint a clear picture: this team lives on the glass and finishes from deep.
No team in the EuroLeague grabs more rebounds per game than Madrid — 1st among all 20 clubs in the competition. And that physical dominance doesn't come at the expense of shooting; it actually feeds it: 3rd in three-point percentage and 4th in field-goal percentage.
The combination matters more than any single stat. A team that wins the glass generates extra possessions; a team that can also shoot like few others turns those extra possessions into real separation on the scoreboard. It's a virtuous circle, and the four preseason games are the proving ground to confirm it's still spinning.
A Starting Five That Already Knows the Answers
The other major advantage heading into this preseason is that Scariolo isn't starting from scratch. Last season's most-used lineup — Facundo Campazzo, Alberto Abalde, Mario Hezonja, Chuma Okeke and Walter Tavares — started together in 24 games, a level of continuity that is rare across such a long season.
That changes the entire purpose of these exhibitions: they're not about figuring out who plays with whom — they're about getting a unit that already has the habits baked in back up to game speed. With Tavares anchoring the best rebounding operation in Europe and Campazzo running the show, the room for experimentation falls to the bench. That's where Breogán, Baskonia, Tenerife and Unicaja will provide the answers we don't have yet.
A Contender — With Unfinished Business
It's worth being straight about the starting point: the reference record is a 24-14 that left Madrid 3rd in the EuroLeague, with a loss as the most recent result on the books. That's the foundation of a serious contender, not an undisputed powerhouse. The Super Cup, precisely, is the first chance to turn that status into hardware.
What the preseason can't answer also needs to be said: we don't yet know the real conditioning level of the roster or how rotations will shake out after the summer, and tune-ups, by definition, only give us hints.
Lo que tiene el Real Madrid
- ✓El mejor rebote de la EuroLiga
- ✓Tiro exterior de élite
- ✓Un quinteto con 24 partidos de rodaje
Lo que le falta
- ✕Convertir el 3º de la fase regular en títulos
- ✕Despejar las incógnitas de rotación que agosto no responde
Madrid isn't going to Abu Dhabi to find itself — it's going to prove it's still exactly who it was.
Four preseason games to sharpen an already battle-tested identity — rebound first, finish from deep — and a Super Cup on September 18 to stamp the first title on the season.
This article was produced with the help of artificial-intelligence tools on verified data from our own database, and was reviewed and edited by a human (Antonio Sierra) before publication.