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Euroleague
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also: EuroLeague Women
| Euroleague | |
|---|---|
 Euroleague 2006-07 |
|
 |
|
| Sport | Basketball |
| Founded | 1958 |
| No. of teams | 24 (Group stages) |
| Country | FIBA Europe member associations |
| Current champions |  CSKA Moscow |
The Euroleague (EL) is a high-calibre professional basketball league with teams from thirteen different European countries. Real Madrid Baloncesto has been its most successful team, having won the competition a record eight times.
The Euroleague (or historically, The European Champions Cup) was established by FIBA and it operated under its umbrella until the summer of 2000 concluding with the 1999/2000 season. That was when ULEB, the Union of European Leagues of Basketball, was created by the 24 richest club teams (most of them from Spain, Italy and Greece).
Amazingly, FIBA had never trademarked the Euroleague name and ULEB simply swiped it without any legal ramifications. Understandably, FIBA brass were fuming, but having no legal recourse to do anything, they had to find a new name for their league. Thus, the following 2000/2001 season started with 2 separate top European basketball competitions: FIBA Suproleague (known as FIBA Euroleague up to that point), and the brand new ULEB Euroleague.
The rift in European club basketball initially showed no signs of letting up. Top clubs were also split between the two leagues: Panathinaikos, Maccabi Tel Aviv, CSKA Moscow, Efes Pilsen, Pau-Orthez, and Partizan stayed with FIBA while Virtus (Kinder) Bologna, Real Madrid, Saski Baskonia (TAU Cerámica), AEK Athens, and Cibona joined ULEB.
In May 2001, Europe had two continental champions. The leaders of both organizations realized the need to come up with a single competition. Negotiating from the position of strength, ULEB dictated proceedings and FIBA essentially had no choice but to agree to their terms. As a result, Euroleague was fully integrated under ULEB's umbrella and teams that competed in FIBA Suproleague during the 2000/2001 season joined it as well.
In essence, the authority in European basketball was divided over club-country lines. FIBA stayed in charge of national team competitions (Eurobasket, World Championships, Olympics) while ULEB took over the club competitions. From that point, FIBA's Korac Cup and Saporta Cup lasted one more season before folding, which was when ULEB launched the ULEB Cup.
The highest attendance ever recorded in Euroleague is 20,000 fans, achieved in a home match of Panathinaikos Athens in OAKA against Benetton on March 29, 2006, for the second phase of the 2005-06 Euroleague. An attendance of 18,900 fans has also been achieved three times in home matches of Panathinaikos, against Efes Pilsen in 2005 and Tau Ceramica (twice) in 2006.
Contents |
The Euroleague is currently contested in four phases.
The first phase is the regular season, in which 24 teams, divided into three groups of eight, participate. Each team plays two games (home-and-home) against every other team in its group. At the end of the regular season, the field is cut from 24 to 16; the surviving teams are divided into four groups.
The second phase, known as the Top 16, then begins. As in the regular season, each Top 16 group is contested in a double round-robin format.
The third phase, the quarterfinal round, has been played since the 2004-05 season. Before, only the group winners advanced to the Final Four (see below). Now, the first- and second-place teams from each group advance. In the quarterfinal round, the first-place team from each group is matched against a second-place team from another group in a best-of-three series, with two of the three possible games scheduled at the first-place team's home court.
The Final Four, held at a predetermined site, features the winners of the four quarterfinal series in one-off knockout matches. The semifinal losers play for third place; the winners play for the championship.
The 2006 Final Four was held April 28-30 at Sazka Arena in Prague, Czech Republic. The semifinal pairings and results were:
- Maccabi Tel Aviv 85 TAU Cerámica 70
- Winterthur FCB (FC Barcelona) 75 CSKA Moscow 84
Maccabi was trying to become the first team to win three consecutive titles in the competition since the Split teams of 1989-91. Alongside Maccabi in the 2006 Final Four were two other clubs that appeared in the 2005 Final Four, held in Moscow. The first semifinal was a rematch of the 2005 final, with Maccabi once again defeating TAU with tight, aggressive defense and accurate shooting. The second semifinal saw last season's fourth-place team, CSKA, come from behind in the third quarter to beat the only “newcomer” in Barça.
The final matches on April 30 were:
- Third place: Barcelona 82 TAU Cerámica 87
- Championship: Maccabi 69 CSKA 73
The 2007 Final Four is scheduled for May 4-6 at the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens.
As announced on the official Euroleague site.
For finals not played on a single match, * precedes the score of the team playing at home.
*2001 was a transition year, with the best European teams split into two major leagues (Suproleague held by FIBA, Euroleague by ULEB).
| Team | Country | Winners | Runners-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real Madrid | Spain | 8 | 6 |
| Maccabi Tel Aviv | Israel | 5* | 7 |
| Pallacanestro Varese | Italy | 5 | 5 |
| CSKA Moscow | USSR/Russia | 5 | 3 |
| Olimpia Milano | Italy | 3 | 2 |
| Panathinaikos | Greece | 3 | 1* |
| KK Split (Jugoplastika, Pop 84) | Yugoslavia | 3 | 1 |
| ASK Riga | USSR | 3 | 1 |
| Virtus Bologna (Kinder) | Italy | 2** | 2 |
| Cibona Zagreb | Yugoslavia | 2 | - |
| Pallacanestro Cantù | Italy | 2 | - |
| FC Barcelona | Spain | 1 | 5 |
| Olympiacos Piraeus | Greece | 1 | 2 |
| Joventut Badalona | Spain | 1 | 1 |
| Dinamo Tbilisi | USSR | 1 | 1 |
| Žalgiris Kaunas | Lithuania | 1 | 1 |
| Virtus Roma | Italy | 1 | - |
| Bosna Sarajevo | Yugoslavia | 1 | - |
| CSP Limoges | France | 1 | - |
| Partizan Belgrade | Yugoslavia | 1 | - |
| Akademic Sofia | Bulgaria | - | 2 |
| Spartak Brno | Czechoslovakia | - | 2 |
| Benetton Treviso | Italy | - | 2 |
| TAU Cerámica | Spain | - | 2** |
| Slavia Prague | Czechoslovakia | - | 1 |
| Fortitudo Bologna (Skipper) | Italy | - | 1 |
| AEK Athens | Greece | - | 1 |
- *Maccabi beat Panathinaikos in the 2000/2001 FIBA Suproleague final. The league did not contain all of the European champions.
- **Virtus beat Saski Baskonia in the 2000/2001 ULEB Euroleague final. The league did not contain all of the European champions.
The titles date back to 1958 when the first European Champions Cup was played.
| Country | Cups |
|---|---|
 Italy |
13 |
 Spain |
10 |
 USSR |
8 |
 SFR Yugoslavia |
6 |
 Israel |
5 |
 Greece |
4 |
 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia |
1 |
 France |
1 |
 Lithuania |
1 |
| Russia |
1 |
- Although Israel is located in the Middle East, its teams play in the Euroleague (similar to Israel's national football team and clubs playing for UEFA competitions).
- In the small area of less than 40 km² in the northern metropolitan Area of Milan, there are 3 teams that won a total of 10 European Champions Cups and played a total of 16 finals:
- Pallacanestro Cantù, which won the Euroleague twice, is the team of a small city of Cantù (only 35.172 inhabitants), located 25 km north of Milan.
- Pallacanestro Varese, which won 5 Euroleagues, is from the city of Varese (only 82,282 inhabitants), which is located a few miles west from Cantù and Milan.
- Olimpia Milano is from the city of Milan itself.
- Record score for a final game was achieved in the 2004 finals in Tel Aviv, where local Maccabi crushed Fortitudo Bologna by a score of 118-74 (44 point difference).
- During the 1970's, Pallacanestro Varese, then-named Ignis and later on Mobilgirgi, reached all 10 finals. These consecutive final matches (of which it won five) were the only ones ever reached by this club.
