Joe Arlauckas celebrates the 2023 champions by hosting Real Madrid head coach Chus Mateo and guard Nigel Williams-Goss for this season’s final episode of the Crossover.
The season finale of the Crossover with Joe Arlauckas is a special three-way interview with host Joe Arlauckas speaking to two key members of the freshly crowned 2023 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague champions: head coach Chus Mateo and guard Nigel Williams-Goss. Together they reviewed the regular season, went into detail about Real’s comeback from an 0-2 deficit in the playoffs against Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade, and discussed all the big moments from the Final Four in Kaunas.
When they spoke, Williams-Goss was still on a high from winning the title.
“It still feels just unbelievable to me. I said all year long that my only goal was to win the EuroLeague. This is something that I’ve thought about, dreamt about since my first year in Europe,” Williams-Goss elated. “In 2018, my first professional season, my first EuroLeague game that I ever watched in person was Madrid and Fener in the EuroLeague final, cause it was in Belgrade at the time and I was playing at Partizan. And so I watched that final game and that image of winning the EuroLeague was in my mind. For that to be a reality now, I still can´t describe it.”
Even though Real was among the very strongest teams throughout the regular season, it stumbled late and it nearly cost Los Blancos dearly. A loss at Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv in the regular-season finale knocked the team from second to third place and set up a matchup with Partizan. Not only did Real lose the first two games, but at the end of Game 2, a fight broke out, both benches cleared and the game was halted before the full 40 minutes were played. The incident left players from both teams suspended for some of the remaining games in the series.