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By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net
Real Madrid are in danger of becoming the first European champions to be disqualified from as early as the regular season of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague. What have the teams that have won the trophy done in the very next season? Eurohoops.net looks back.
How long does the… aura of the European champion last? Does winning the Euroleague trophy give an extra boost to those teams in the very next season so they can have a good start and also an ideal finish to the year?
Prompted by Real Madrid, who have made by far the worst start of a European champion in the last 15 years, Eurohoops.net searched to find what has taken place in the past, revealing that, until recently, the gold dust from winning the Euroleague had been enough for most teams.
From 2000-01 champions Kinder Bologna, to the Real team of the 2014-15 period, only two have won back to back Euroleague titles (Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv in 2005 and Olympiacos Piraeus in 2013), and another five have qualified to the Final Four but didn’t win. Furthermore, three European champions have been disqualified during the playoffs and four during the Top16!
Read on for more details!
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[lptitle title=”Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv“]
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2014-15
Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv
Regular period: 7-3 wins (2nd)
Top 16: 9-5 wins (3rd)
Playoffs: Disqualification in 3-0 wins from Fenerbahce Istanbul
A year after their triumph against all odds in Milan, Maccabi reached the Euroleague Playoffs with many ups and downs throughout the season. In the 2014-15 season they were knocked out easily from the Final Four in 3-0 wins from Fenerbahce, which is normal considering the big changes in the roster that team had compared to the one that won the trophy. David Blatt moved to the NBA, while the protagonists of that year, Ricky Hickman, Tyrese Rice and Shawn James, also left Tel Aviv.
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[lptitle title=”Olympiacos“]
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2013-14
Olympiacos
Regular period: 10 wins (1st)
Top 16: 8-6 wins (3rd)
Playoffs: Disqualification in 3-2 wins from Real Madrid
The team that had two consecutive Euroleague trophies didn’t manage to reach the Final Four for the fifth time in the last six years. Olympiacos had an impressive start to the season with a 10-0 record during the regular period, but “paid for” the injuries of Vassilis Spanoulis, Georgios Printezis and Stratos Perperoglou in that same period midway through the Top16 when they suffered four defeats in a row. This was preceded by the loss of Acie Law with a serious injury after Christmas as well as the summer departures of Kyle Hines, Pero Antic and Kostas Papanikolaou. In any case, the red-and-whites succumbed in the fifth game of the Playoffs.
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[lptitle title=”Olympiacos“]
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2012-13
Olympiacos
Regular period: 8-2 wins (2nd)
Top 16: 9-5 wins (2nd)
Playoffs: Qualification in 3-2 wins over Anadolu Efes Istanbul
Final Four: Winners (69-52 win over CSKA Moscow, 100-88 win over Real)
The Olympiacos team of the 2012-13 season is the only team after Maccabi in 2004-05 that celebrated back to back wins in the last 25 years. Despite changing the coach (Georgios Bartzokas replaced Dusan Ivkovic), the red-and-whites retained the biggest part of their core unit and won
the Euroleague again, despite often playing a different style of basketball. Apart from the excellent Final Four Games with the excellent defensive game against CSKA Moscow and the great offensive game vs Real Madrid, the turning point of the season was the fifth Playoffs game against Efes.
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[lptitle title=”Panathinaikos Athens“]
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2011-12
Panathinaikos Athens
Regular period: 7-3 wins (2nd)
Top 16: 4-2 wins (2nd)
Playoffs: Qualification in 3-2 wins over Maccabi Tel Aviv
Final Four: 4th place (64-66 defeat by CSKA Moscow, 69-74 defeat by FC
Barcelona Lassa)
Panathinaikos qualified for the Final Four in Istanbul the following season after they won the title in Barcelona, which was also Zeljko Obradovic’s last one on the team’s bench. The greens kept the biggest part of the roster that won the 6th European title in the team’s history (except Antonis Fotsis and Drew Nicholas) and in this way, despite the ups and downs, the qualification to the Final Four was seen as meeting the objective of the season. They couldn’t go the extra mile in the semifinal against CSKA though, which was decided by details.
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[lptitle title=”Barcelona“]
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2010-11
Barcelona
Regular period: 7-3 wins (3rd)
Top 16: 6-0 wins (1st)
Playoffs: Disqualified in 1-3 wins by Panathinaikos
In 2011 Barcelona had a golden opportunity to bring off the repeat at home but they missed the opportunity as Panathinaikos knocked them out in the Playoffs of the competition despite having the home advantage. The “blaugrana” won the title in 2010 in Paris and the next season they were the big favorites. Besides, Barcelona’s course leading up to the playoffs was excellent. However, the absence of Pete Mickeal, who departed midway through the season, really hurt Xavi Pascual.
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[lptitle title=”Panathinaikos“]
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2009-10
Panathinaikos
Regular period: 8-2 wins (2nd)
Top 16: 2-4 wins (3rd)
For the second time after 2008, Panathinaikos, having the title of the European champion, weren’t able to go any further beyond the Top16. The greens had a very bad start in the Top16 and with four consecutive defeats (two from Barcelona and one each from KK Partizan and Maroussi B.C.) they bid the tournament farewell prematurely, despite the fact that the roster Zeljko Obradovic had at his disposal was almost the same to the one that had surprised Europe a year earlier in the Final Four in Berlin. The injuries that hit the greens at a crucial point in the season created insurmountable obstacles.
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[lptitle title=”CSKA Moscow “]
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2008-09
CSKA Moscow
Regular period: 7-3 wins (1st)
Top 16: 5-1 wins (1st)
Playoffs: Qualification against Partizan in 2-1 wins
Final Four: Finalists (82-78 win over Barcelona, 71-73 defeat by
Panathinaikos)
European champions CSKA were one (missed) shot away from winning the second title in a row in 2009. The Russian team was consistent throughout the entire season suffering only four defeats in the lead-up to the Championship Game in the Final Four in Berlin. Besides, for yet another year Ettore Messina had kept the same core, losing only Theodoros Papaloukas and David Andersen in relation to the previous season. In the Championship Game against Panathinaikos though, CSKA made the big overthrow, but Ramunas Siskauskas missed in the final play of the game and the greens won the title.
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[lptitle title=”Panathinaikos “]
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2007-08
Panathinaikos
Regular period: 12-2 wins (1st)
Top 16: 3-3 wins (3rd)
After winning the Final Four in 2007 in the Olympic Sports Center in Athens, Panathinaikos were reinforced with the acquisition of Vassilis Spanoulis and Sarunas Jasikevicius, but weren’t even able to reach the Final Four in Madrid. The greens were excellent in the regular period of the season, but didn’t win a single away game in the Top16 (losing to Efes, Montepaschi Siena and Partizan) and were knocked out. The fateful game was the one against Partizan when the defeat in the final round left Panathinaikos outside of the playoffs.
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[lptitle title=”CSKA Moscow“]
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2006-07
CSKA Moscow
Regular period: 13-1 wins (1st)
Top 16: 6-0 wins (1st)
Playoffs: Qualification over Maccabi in 2-1 wins
Final Four: Finalists (62-50 win over Unicaja Malaga, 93-91 defeat by
Panathinaikos)
CSKA never took their foot off the gas throughout the entire season, having only two defeats by the time they reached the Final Four. The formula was the same, as was the captain (Messina) and the crew. The Russians did splendidly throughout the entire season, but couldn’t pull off the repeat, as they lost to Panathinaikos in the Championship Game of the Final Four in the Olympic Sports Center in Athens in what was one of the best Championship Games in the history of the Euroleague.
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[lptitle title=”Maccabi Tel Aviv“]
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2005-06
Maccabi Tel Aviv
Regular Period: 9-5 wins (1st)
Top16: 5-1 wins (1st)
Playoffs: Qualification over Olympiacos in 2-1 wins
Final Four: Finalists (85-70 win over TAU Ceramica, 69-73 defeat by
CSKA)
Maccabi didn’t have an ideal start to the 2005-06 season in which they tried to win the third consecutive Euroleague trophy. They had three defeats in the first six rounds, but they improved along the way, qualified to the Final Four in Prague and that’s where they missed the opportunity for the unprecedented three-peat as they lost to CSKA in the Championship Game. The Israelis only lost Jasikevicius in comparison to the previous year, but they continued being more than effective.
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[lptitle title=”Maccabi Tel Aviv“]
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2004-05
Maccabi
Regular period: 10-4 wins (1st)
Top 16: 6-0 wins (1st)
Playoffs: Qualification over Scavolini Gruppo Spar in 2-0 wins
Final Four: Winners (91-82 win over Panathinaikos, 90-78 win over TAU
Ceramica)
Throughout the whole year, Maccabi were playing with the confidence that the imposing win of the title the previous season had given them. During the regular period of 14 rounds they had four harmless defeats and from the 10th of February onwards they completed the season only with wins – in the Top16, the Playoffs and the Final Four – highlighting the character of the winner the team had developed.
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[lptitle title=”Barcelona “]
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2003-04
Barcelona
Regular period: 12-2 wins (1st)
Top 16: 2-4 wins (3rd)
Winning the title in 2003 in the Final Four in Barcelona gave Barcelona a tremendous boost the following year. Besides, only Jasikevicius was missing form the roster of the European champions. The start of the season for the Spanish team was impressive and up to the completion of the Top16 Barcelona had an overall record of 14-3 in the Euroleague. Despite this, three consecutive defeats in the second round (to Siena, Panathinaikos and Benetton Treviso) forced the 2003 champions to surrender the reigns prematurely.
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[lptitle title=”Panathinaikos“]
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2002-03
Panathinaikos
Regular period: 11-3 wins (1st)
Top 16: 3-3 wins (3rd)
Panathinaikos’ bad start in the group stage right after the triumph in the Final Four in Bologna (they started with a 4-3 record) was recovered with a 7-0 winning streak. The greens had lost Dejan Bodiroga from the previous season, but Zeljko Obradovic was careful to keep most of the team’s core. In the Top16, Panathinaikos started out as a favorite to earn a spot in the Final Four, but lost all three away games and was knocked out.
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