On the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf, they are currently three hours ahead. That’s why the Bayern basketball team traveled a day earlier than usual for the next leg of their road trip; since Wednesday evening, the Munich side have been acclimatizing at their base near the 830-meter-high Burj Khalifa. By Friday they will also have completed a full practice next door in the arena, where FCBB will face Dubai Basketball for the first time ever from 5 p.m. German time.
After five straight defeats, it’s once again no easy task to finally clinch the sixth win of the season on Matchday 15. The hosts (6:9) are a direct rival in the bottom half of the table. Last week, the ambitious team from the Emirate suffered a narrow 78:79 loss in Bologna. They are unbeaten at home, having won all five games there — the sixth, a 97:109 against league leaders Hapoel Tel Aviv, was played in Sarajevo.
Topscorer Bacon
While the circumstances and atmosphere in the Coca-Cola Arena — it holds 17.000 spectators, with an officially reported 5.000 fans at the 90:89 over Paris at the end of November — will be a new experience for the Bayern, they will meet familiar faces on the court. The startup, launched last year initially in the Adriatic League in Eastern Europe, has signed some big-name pros for its entry into the continent’s top competition.
First and foremost, Serbian international Filip Petrusev (14.8 ppg), who arrived from Crvena zvezda Belgrade. The marquee signing Dzanan Musa (15.0/Real Madrid) is likely still injured, and there is also a question mark over US forward Dwayne Bacon (15.8 ppg, formerly Monaco and Panathinaikos), signed from Russia. Playmaker Aleksa Avramovic (11.5), who won Olympic bronze with Serbia in 2024, recently returned after a longer injury layoff. His compatriot Nemanja Dangubic won the double with Bayern in 2019.
“We have to help ourselves”
After three games conceding at least 90 points, it’s clear what FC Bayern head coach Gordon Herbert emphasized in the team meeting before Thursday evening’s practice. Speaking about the game, the Canadian said: “Dubai have a very ambitious program and a very good team with a lot of individual talent. But it’s more about us — namely that we have to play better basketball as a team. We’ve maneuvered ourselves into a difficult situation in the EuroLeague. No one is going to help us get out of it; we have to help ourselves. I’m convinced we can do it, but to do so we have to be a team.”
Veteran Niels Giffey also sees the onus primarily on his own side: “It’s important now that we work our way out of our slump in the EuroLeague. Dubai aren’t yet perfectly in rhythm either, but the quality is, of course, very high. It’s good that we arrived here two days earlier. But now we have to deliver.”