The Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) and the Community of Madrid presented this Tuesday the agreement that makes the Spanish capital the host of one of the groups and the final phase of the 2029 EuroBasket. A total of 31 games will be played there (15 in the first round and 16 in the knockout stage), including the crown jewel: the opening game at the Santiago Bernabéu in front of 80,000 spectators, which would set a record for FIBA basketball.
National team basketball returns to Madrid 15 years after the then Palacio de los Deportes (now Movistar Arena) hosted the knockout rounds of the 2014 World Cup. The other venues for the tournament, scheduled for September 2029, will be Athens (Greece), Tallinn (Estonia), and Ljubljana (Slovenia), each hosting a first-round group.
“It will be almost a year since I experienced one of the happiest moments as president. I have experienced records, medals, sustainable growth in licenses… but that day in Latvia, with Sergio Rodríguez and Sergio Scariolo, we were able to convince the FIBA Bureau that our bid was more than a tournament. We are going to do it in a region that lives sports, and we are going to elevate basketball to another level,” said Elisa Aguilar, president of the FEB. “None of this would have happened without the first conversation with the president. It didn’t last long, but that usually happens when there is a connection. Thank you for believing in our project, for betting on it, and for assuming the costs.”
“It will be an unprecedented opening game. I believe it will help basketball turn a page and place this sport where it deserves to be,” the president explained about the match at the Bernabéu, before discussing figures: “The championship budget will be around 25 million euros and will include a large number of preliminary activities. It will be two weeks of competition, with an estimated economic impact in Madrid exceeding 300 million euros. (…) I could use the cliché ‘from Madrid to heaven,’ but I think there is no higher place than where we already are,” the leader concluded.
“I will enjoy it as a fan and also enjoy a young team that I am very excited to see,” said Rudy Fernández, captain in the last European gold, in Berlin in 2022, and who has been present in all the titles of the national team. “It will give me healthy envy — because of the game at the Bernabéu — because playing there is any athlete’s dream,” added the Mallorcan, who joked: “I’m still feeling good…”
The former captain of Real Madrid and the national team passed the baton to Fernando Romay. “Basketball couldn’t be missing from the city of sports. A team that, by then, could be unbeatable. I can’t wait to experience it. At the FEB, things are not done just for the sake of doing them; it will be a tournament to watch but also to live. That’s why I’m so eager,” acknowledged the center from the Olympic silver in Los Angeles 84. And he wants to be there. “I’m also preparing like Rudy,” he joked while looking at Chus Mateo. “I’m doing Pilates to at least sit down and stand up at the Bernabéu.”
Chus Mateo will coach the national team at the EuroBasket. “The fact that it’s in Spain, and in my home, Madrid, is a responsibility. We will try to do things as well as possible to leave Spanish basketball as high as possible,” said the coach, who warned about what lies ahead. “Talking about the golden juniors is a big deal. Trying to put the…”