By Niki Bakouli
On August 24, 2012 FC Barcelona Regal will have its 86th birthday. By that time, Blaugrana will have already celebrate their 12th presence at Euroleague’s Final Four! The Catalans after 3-0 against Unics Kazan hold, at least temporarily, the record for most appearances in the Final Four, with Maccabi Tel Aviv counting 11 before Thursday’s Game against Panathinaikos who has 10 appearances, as CSKA Moscow do also.
So, lets go back to FC Barcelona’s Regal story to Final Fours, but specially to the Finals. It all began in 1990, when they went to Zaragoza and they lost the title to Jugoplastika Split (75-69). They returned next year in Paris (1991), where they lost again at the final to Pop 84 Split (70-65). By the way, Yugoslavia’s representatives (back then) had back to back titles, something only one other team accomplished (after the… birth of Final Four since 1988) and it’s Maccabi Tel Aviv.
FC Barcelona got a ticket for 1996’s Final Four, again in Paris, where they lost one more final to Panathinaikos (67-66, at PAO’s first Euroleague title). Next year the managed again to reach the final, but this time they lost to Olympiacos (73-58) at Rome.
After four failures, it was time to reach the top: at Barcelona, in 2003, they had the opportunity to make the most out of their own Final Four. They beat Benetton Treviso (76-65) and were able to sing “we are the champions” for the first time. The next time they got to Final Four’s final, was seven years later, in Paris where again they reached the top, by beating Olympiacos (86-68).