By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
After weeks of speculations and rumors, Euroleague announced officially the teams that will participate in the competition next season. Valencia and Spartak Saint Petersburg who seemed like the wildcards favorites will have to play in Eurocup. Instead two teams with impressive results in last season’s Euroleague, Bennet Cantu of Italy and Unics Kazan of Russia, got wildcards for the qualification round and the big surprise is that Alba Berlin of Germany got the C License wildcard and will play directly in Euroleague’s regular season. It was a decision “approved by the Board, taking into consideration the importance of the German market for Euroleague Basketball and its interest in developing the basketball business in that country”, as the official press release writes.
So, here is the list of the teams that will compete in next season’s edition of Euroleague: Anadolu Efes, Besiktas, Fenerbahce Ulker(Turkey), Prokom (Poland), CSKA Moscow, Khimki (Russia), Brose Baskets, Alba Berlin (Germany), Caja Laboral, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Malaga (Spain), Cedevita Zagreb (Croatia), EA7 Milano, Siena (Italy), Elan Chalon-sur-Saone (France), Lietuvos Rytas, Zalgiris Kaunas (Lithuania), Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel), Olympiacos, Panathinaikos (Greece), Partizan (Serbia), Olimpijia Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the winning team of qualifying rounds.
The teams of the special qualification round are the following: Donetsk (Ukraine), Cantu (Italy), Nymburk (Czech Republic), Le Mans (France), Lukoil (Bulgaria), Ulm (Germany), Oostende (Belgium), Unics Kazan (Russia).