Manu Rodríguez: «That effort was needed at the back, but we have to maintain the level»

This past Sunday he entered the scene as one of the men in the rotation in Roberto Blanco’s schemes, but in the end he was the Cáceres player who accumulated the most minutes on the court in the victory of the Verdinegro team against Melilla. Manu Rodríguez, who has had a difficult season due to his physical discomfort, starred against the North African team in one of his best games with the Extremadura squad. At the height of the one signed several weeks ago on the Granada pitch, where he was also key to Cáceres’s comeback.

“The one on Sunday was a very good victory that puts us in the direction that we wanted and that we had lost in the previous weeks. What had led us to have 12 wins was to sacrifice ourselves, work behind and flow in attack so that each one contributes what they can. We had lost that and on Sunday we recovered it », says the player, who finished with 18 points in his private box.

The black-and-green shooting guard says he is satisfied with his individual performance, but he is more focused on the team’s overall performance: “Whenever you play a game like this, you are happy, but the truth is that I prefer to start from behind because it is that we ask each other when we get together during the week. We needed that effort behind, but now we have to maintain the level of effort and sacrifice”, he expresses referring not only to the next games, but also to the group’s training sessions: “I am happy and proud of the team’s work”.

With experience behind him, Manu Rodríguez advocates not falling into an excess of relaxation: «If now we think that how good we are, we are going to see each other again in that pothole. We have to go up as far as we can.”

With a long week ahead of them, Cáceres will return to training this Tuesday to prepare for a high-level appointment this coming Sunday, when the Verdinegro team will pay a visit to Estudiantes at the WiZink Center (7:00 p.m.). A meeting for which Cáceres has organized a group trip for its faithful, who will have until this Wednesday to sign up at the club headquarters (Oaxaca Street) for a trip that includes travel and entry for 25 euros.

After finishing this past day, Cáceres, with 13 wins and 12 losses, retains the playoff position for promotion to the ACB. Roberto Blanco’s team is seventh in the table, although there are rivals, such as Girona and Oviedo, who have the same number of wins and have played one game less. It should be remembered that the first classified at the end of the regular league will get direct promotion to the ACB and the second place for the elite will be played from the second to the ninth classified.

space

Institutionally, both the president of Cáceres, José Manuel Sánchez, and the first team players Jaume Lobo, Carlos Toledo and Romaric Belemene visited the Aspace facilities on Monday, an organization that works for people with cerebral palsy and related disabilities. . Hand in hand with Pitarch Grupo Empresarial and within the program of social actions that the club usually carries out to favor inclusion through sports in general and basketball in particular, all of them shared part of the morning with the users of a center that attends assistance needs of 140 families. Aspace users received the invitation from Cáceres so that all of them can attend the game that on Sunday, April 17, the Verdinegro team will play in the Multipurpose pavilion against El Prat (7:00 p.m.). A meeting corresponding to day 29 of LEB Oro.