The Sports Palace of the Community of Madrid, also known as the Movistar Arena, is one of Europe's grandest stages for basketball. A marvellous building, it could seat as many as 13,109 people.
Real Madrid, the home team, is Europe's most successful club with 11 EuroLeague championships to its name.
Next Tuesday night, Real will host a very important EuroLeague game in the Movistar Arena – but this time the stands won't be full with its famous fanbase draped in white.
Only 7,000-8,000 people are expected to be attending and this is not because of any lack of interest – on the contrary, Real is playing Hapoel Tel Aviv in the opener of a quarter final best of 5 series.
Hapoel, in its first EuroLeague season, has exhibited some powerful, quality basketball and its roster is considered to be most expensive in Europe.
But Real is not allowed to pack the arena and only its season ticket holders will be permitted to enter Movistar.
"This is because the Spanish police are not allowing them to have a full house", said Juan Morenilla, who covers the club for El Pais, Spain's most popular daily newspaper and website.
"Until now, when playing Israeli teams the police did not allow any fans to get in," added Morenilla, "this is because since the start of the Gaza War, the anti-Israeli sentiment in Spain was very strong. There were many mass protests, also in sporting events involving Israeli athletes or teams. So the police is very concerned, as well as the Spanish teams. It's going to be interesting to see what will happen now when some fans, even most of the arena, are allowed to get in. Will there be any protests during the game? Will the game stop? We don't know. We could just hope for the best but maybe expect the worse."
Seven months ago, during the famed Vuelta a España cycling competition, some of the stages could not be completed because of tens of thousands of Spanish people protesting against Israeli Premier Tech team.
A few of the riders even got injured as protesters stormed the race. At the end of it, the group decided not to compete again in Europe as an Israeli team.
But Hapoel Tel Aviv, who will play in Spain tonight, on Wednesday, and also on Friday, views itself as "a proud Israeli representative", as Shimon Amsalem, Hapoel's past legendary captain and today a board member, told the JC.
“Those are very difficult and challenging days for Israel in the international arena," added Amsalem, "and therefore it es even more important to compete and to win and to show the world Israel's best side."
Ofer Yannay, Hapoel's owner, concurred: "You should look at our team as a metaphor for what Israel was and what Israel could be," Yannay said.
"When I took over Hapoel three years ago it was a borderline playoff Israeli league team. It almost never participated in major international games or won anything – Hapoel's last Israeli championship was in 1969 – and then, a few weeks after I bought the club, October 7 happened.
"It meant we couldn't host any games in Israel for almost two years. But, we've managed to win the Eurocup (Europe's 2nd most prestigious competition) when all our games were abroad. This year, we've managed to finish in the Top 6 of the EuroLeague, an unprecedented achievement for team coming up from the Eurocup, and now we're going to face Real Madrid, one of the world's greatest clubs, in a series when both teams are considered quite equal.
"For me, this is a great metaphor to the potential we have and the potential the state of Israel has."
Yannay knows a thing or two about "potential" as he was raised with six siblings in a relatively poor Israeli development town and became a self-made billionaire by founding one of the world's leading renewable energy companies – Nofar Energy.
One of Yannay's new partners in Hapoel Tel Aviv is Alan Howard, a British-Jewish businessman and one of the most influential figures in global finance as well as a philanthropist.
"We couldn't have done we do in Hapeol without our partners who are Jews from diaspora like Alan," said Yannay. "I think this a message that should resonate because this is the time for the Jews who do not live in Israel to participate in the remaking of Israel. What October 7 reminded us was that the dream is fragile and we need to fight in order to keep it alive. But for me it's also an opportunity to start to dream bigger dreams – I want to make Hapoel Tel Aviv a major contender in European sports and basketball but I also want Israel to play a bigger and more prominent role in the world and for this we need Jews from all over the diaspora to be our partners and help us recreate Israel just like we try to recreate Hapoel. Hopefully, it would help us beat Real Madrid.”
Real's famed coach, Sergio Scariolo, agrees with Yannay: "I think Hapoel is a very strong team and they had an unbelievable first EuroLeague season," he told the JC, adding: "Therefore, I think the series against them will be very difficult between two equal teams."
Just a year ago – who would believe this could happen?
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