Ismaila Diagne, the latest pearl of the Real Madrid quarry: "I didn't even know she was 16 years old"

Few could guess that the replacement for Europe's most decisive player in an entire classic was going to be a 16-year-old boy.. Much less that, in the absence of Edy Tavares, Ismaila Diagne was going to have a blast against Barça and – with the permission of Vincent Poirier – was going to become the main protagonist of the afternoon at the WiZink Center. He presented himself to the world with the stands exhausted, nine points and eight rebounds and several precocity records pulverized.

The physically impressive boy (2.14 meters) couldn't stop smiling. And the white locker room felt part of their party. Chus Mateo, who confessed at a press conference that he really didn't know that the Senegalese was 16 years old (he turns 17 at the end of December) had made the decision to start him – “if it had gone wrong, Chus Mateo is crazy because he got a 16-year-old boy,” he joked, “another youth player making his debut, and Ismaila (that's how his teammates know him) took care of Jan Vesely: in five minutes he had grabbed seven rebounds, five of them offensive.

Born in 2006 and arriving at the white youth academy in children (2019), the left-footed Diagne was becoming the youngest player to debut in a Barça-Real Madrid team in the Endesa League (he was already the second youngest to debut with that t-shirt last May). Surpassing, no less, than Luka Doncic, when in 2015, also at the WiZink Center, he played a classic with just a few days older: 16 years, 9 months and 28 days. Only they have debuted in a match like this when they were under 17. With a PIR of 16 in 13:26 minutes of play (nine points, eight rebounds), according to ACB data, only four players have reached double digits of PIR in the Endesa League while being younger than him: Bassala Bagayoko, Ricky Rubio, Luka Doncic and Usman Garuba.

“The team needed it. Young players don't play because they are young.. They do it because they are good and it is easy to put the good ones. If I had played badly, I wouldn't have played so much.. “He is working very well,” admitted his coach, who also highlighted the other dynamic youth squad, the promising Hugo González, who was not called up yesterday and other pearls who were seen in the preseason such as Egor Demin (Russian point guard) and Mitar Bosnjakovic (Serbian forward). and the already established Eli Ndiaye, “an absolute rotation player”. “They are going to make us lengthen our rotations,” said Mateo, who has lost up to four players from the previous year (Hanga, Cornelie, Williams-Goss and Anthony Randolph) and has only signed Facundo Campazzo.

“I'm glad because the boy works well. It is a reward for young people and what we want to do with them.. The meaning of the quarry. If people don't come out, it doesn't make sense.. There is a very good job behind it,” Chus Mateo said about the excellent training work of a Real Madrid that has become a fishing ground for the NBA in recent years.

It is the fifth consecutive victory for Real Madrid so far this year, two in the Super Cup and three in the ACB. The second victory against a Barça that once again left tremulous signs and that had Roger Grimau with an evident expression of concern in his subsequent evaluations. “We haven't been good…. We have lost control and we have not had enough energy either. We still have a way to go,” he said and, when asked about the poor contribution of Willy Hernangómez, his star signing, he referred to the collective: “We are all screwed, because losing against Madrid screws us up.”