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Euroleague

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The Euroleague is a high-caliber professional basketball league with teams from all over Europe.

Euroleague

The Euroleague was established by FIBA and it operated under its umbrella until Summer of 2000 concluding with the season 1999/2000. That was when ULEB, the Union of European Leagues of Basketball, was created by 24 richest club teams (most of them from Spain, Italy and Greece).

Amazingly, FIBA had never copyright protected 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. So, 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 was on and it showed no signs of letting up initially. Top clubs were also split between the two leagues: Panathinaikos, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Efes Pilsen, Pau-Orthez, Partizan, etc. stayed with FIBA's, while Virtus (Kinder) Bologna, FC Barcelona, Saski Baskonia (TAU Cerámica), AEK Athens, Cibona, etc. joined ULEB's.

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 in season 2000/2001 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 is when ULEB launched its ULEB Cup.

The highest attendance ever taken place in Euroleague is 18,900 achieved four times in the home matches of Panathinaikos Athens against Efes Pilsen in 2005 and Benetton Treviso and Tau Ceramica (twice) in 2006.

Contents

Euroleague format

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 were 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:

The 2007 Final Four is scheduled for May 4-6 at the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens.

Teams of 2006-2007 Euroleague

  • Köln

Russia

Serbia and Montenegro

Slovenia

Champions 1958-2006

ASK Riga
  • 1959
    • ASK Riga
  • 1960
    • ASK Riga
  • 1961
    • CSKA Moscow
  • 1962
    • Dinamo Tbilisi
  • 1963
    • CSKA Moscow
  • 1964 23px Real Madrid
  • 1965 23px Real Madrid
  • 1966 Olimpia (Simmenthal) Milan
  • 1967 23px Real Madrid
  • 1968 23px Real Madrid
  • 1969
    • CSKA Moscow
  • 1970 Pallacanestro (Ignis) Varese
  • 1971
    • CSKA Moscow
  • 1972 Pallacanestro (Ignis) Varese
  • 1973 Pallacanestro (Ignis) Varese
  • 1974 23px Real Madrid
  • 1975 Pallacanestro (Ignis) Varese
  • 1976 Pallacanestro (Mobilgirgi) Varese
  • 1977 Maccabi Tel-Aviv
  • 1978 Real Madrid
  • 1979
    • KK Bosna Sarajevo
  • 1980 Real Madrid
  • 1981 Maccabi Tel-Aviv
  • 1982 Pallacanestro Cantù (Squibb)
  • 1983 Pallacanestro Cantù (Ford)
  • 1984 Virtus (Banco di Roma) Rome
  • 1985
    • Cibona Zagreb
  • 1986
    • Cibona Zagreb
  • 1987 Olimpia (Tracer) Milan
  • 1988 Olimpia (Philips) Milan
  • 1989
    • KK Split (Jugoplastika)
  • 1990
    • KK Split (Jugoplastika)
  • 1991
    • KK Split (Pop 84)
  • 1992 Partizan Belgrade
  • 1993 CSP Limoges
  • 1994 Joventut Badalona
  • 1995 Real Madrid
  • 1996 Panathinaikos
  • 1997 Olympiacos Piraeus
  • 1998 Virtus (Kinder) Bologna
  • 1999 Žalgiris Kaunas
  • 2000 Panathinaikos Athens
  • 2001* Virtus (Kinder) Bologna ULEB Euroleague
  • 2001* Maccabi Tel-Aviv FIBA Suproleague
  • 2002 Panathinaikos
  • 2003 FC Barcelona
  • 2004 Maccabi Tel-Aviv
  • 2005 Maccabi Tel-Aviv
  • 2006 CSKA Moscow
    • *''2001 was a transition year, with the best European teams split into two major leagues (Suproleague held by FIBA, Euroleague by ULEB).

    Titles by team

    Team Country Winners Runners-Up

    Real Madrid Spain 8 6
    Pallacanestro Varese Italy 5 5
    CSKA Moscow USSR/Russia 5 3
    Maccabi Tel-Aviv Israel 5* 7
    Panathinaikos Greece 3 2*
    Olimpia Milano Italy 3 2
    ASK Riga USSR 3 1
    KK Split (Jugoplastika) Yugoslavia 3 1
    Virtus Bologna Italy 2* 2
    Cibona Zagreb Yugoslavia 2
    Pallacanestro Cantù Italy 2
    FC Barcelona Spain 1 5
    Olympiacos 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
    Pallacanestro Treviso Italy
    2
    Saski Baskonia Spain
    2*
    Slavia Prague Czechoslovakia
    1
    Fortitudo Bologna Italy
    1
    AEK Athens Greece
    1
    The titles date back to 1958 when the first European Champions Cup was played.

    Titles by country

    Country Cups

    Italy 13
    Spain 10
    USSR 8
    SFR Yugoslavia 6
    Israel 5
    Greece 4
    Serbia and Montenegro 1
    France 1
    Lithuania 1
    Russia 1

    Trivia

    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 of the same:

    External links

    [[bat-smg:Eurolyga]]

     

    From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
    All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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