The countries with the most Euroleague champions

By Lefteris Moutis/ moutis@eurohoops.net

From which country do most European club champions come from? Eurohoops.net counted the countries whose players have celebrated winning the Turkish Airlines Euroleague the most times and listed the top twelve.

From 2000-01 up to last season’s Final Four in Madrid, 15 teams have won the Euroleague and a total of 216 players have played for them, even if it was for one game. The task of tracing the players that have celebrated the Euroleague trophy was easy, but their registration by country was harder.

We chose to rank the players according to their country of origin and not the one they later got a passport from. The criterion then, has to do with the country each player grew up in and not so much the national team they played in.

For example, Aleks Maric grew up in Australia, despite the Serbian origin of his parents, while Dusan Sakota grew up in Greece from the age of 4. Similarly, Gregor Fucka came of age in Slovenia and later acquired Italian citizenship.

In the following pages you can see in detail all the players who appeared on the roster of a team in the year they won the Euroleague (even if they didn’t finish the season there) based on their country of origin.

Presented here are the countries that have at least five European club champions.

Croatia

5 champions

A Croatian player has won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague five times since 2000-01 and only Damir Mulaomerovic (in 2002 with Panathinaikos Athens) hasn’t done so with the colors of Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv. Nikola Vujcic (two times), Bruno Sundov and Andrija Zizic did so with the Israeli team.

Australia

5 champions

Faraway Australia has celebrated winning the Turkish Airlines Euroleague title through one of its basketball children five times. Of course, three of those belong to David Andersen, who lifted the Euroleague trophy in 2001 with Kinder Bologna, and in 2006 and 2008 with CSKA Moscow. The group is completed by Aleks Maric, who was raised in Australia, and Joe Ingles.

Argentina

5 champions

Five different Argentinians have won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague all these years. The start was made by Manu Ginobili and Hugo Sconochini with Kinder Bologna in 2001, followed by Pepe Sanchez next year with Panathinaikos Athens and Facundo Campazzo and Andres Nocioni last year with Real Madrid.

Slovenia

7 champions

Slovenia is by far the smallest – in terms of population – country that is included in this list and with seven presences! Matjaz Smodis has celebrated winning the Turkish Airlines Euroleague three times (two with CSKA Moscow and one with Kinder Bologna) and Gregor Fucka, Sani Becirovic, Jaka Lakovic and Erazem Lorbek have all made it once.

Italy

8 champions

Kinder Bologna’s triumph in the first year of the new era of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague (2000-01) boosted Italy on the list with the most European champions. That season, a total of seven Italians won the title.  The only one who did so with a separate team is Gianluca Basile, who celebrated the trophy as an FC Barcelona Lassa player in 2010.

Serbia

10 champions

Serbia is the second country with the most European champions without having a championship team. A total of ten Serbs have won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, with Dejan Bodiroga being the only one who has done so twice. Historically, the team with the most Serbs is Panathinaikos Athens, who had at least one Serb in every season they became European champions, bringing together a total of five.

Lithuania

10 champions

No Lithuanian team has ever reached the Final Four of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague from 2000-01 onwards, but a player from this big basketball country has won the trophy ten times. And all this is entirely due to five players!

The Euroleague legend Sarunas Jasikevicius has climbed on the highest step of the podium four times with three different teams (FC Barcelona Lassa, Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv, Panathinaikos Athens), Ramunas Siskauskas did it two years in a row (Panathinaikos, CSKA Moscow), just like Martynas Gecevicius with Olympiacos Piraeus. Robertas Javtokas and Jonas Maciulis complete the Lithuanians’ glorious five.

Israel

15 champions

Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague three times since the 2000-01 season and, as is natural, the Israeli players are very high on the list with the champions! It’s extremely interesting that no Israeli player has ever celebrated winning the Euroleague with a team outside of Maccabi. The players who won the Euroleague two times are three (Yotam Halperin, Gur Shelef, Tal Burnstein).

Russia

16 champions

CSKA Moscow won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague two times, in 2006 and in 2008, and so Russian players have become European champions on 16 occasions. The period between CSKA’s two trophies is short and so four of the players took part in both triumphs. Anatoly Kashirov, Zakhar Pashutin, Aleksey Savrasenko and Nikita Kurbanov were on the roster of the Russian team in both seasons. However, the impressive fact is that no Russian has won the Euroleague with a team outside of their country.

Spain

17 champions

They’ve won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague three times since 2000-01 (FC Barcelona Lassa 2003 and 2010, and Real Madrid 2015). So, 17 Spanish players have celebrated the title. The only one who has experienced the joy two times is Juan Carlos Navarro, who made it in 2003 and 2010 with Barcelona. Very few Spaniards play in Euroleague teams outside of Spain and so this allocation is not surprising.

United States of America

48 champions

The United States of America is by far the country outside of Europe with the largest representation of players who have celebrated as Turkish Airlines Euroleague champs. A total of 40 American players have won the title all these years since 2000-01. The only European championship winning team that didn’t have any Americans on its roster was FC Barcelona Lassa in the 2002-03 season!

Mike Batiste has lifted the trophy three times, all of them with Panathinaikos Athens (2007, 2009, 2011), while there are eight more players who have made it two times. Those are: Anthony Parker, Maceo Boston, David Blu, Deon Thomas, Derrick Sharp, Trajan Langdon, J. R. Holden, Drew Nicholas, Kyle Hines, Acie Law and Joey Dorsey (the second time he wasn’t in the Final Four with Olympiacos Piraeus, but played for the Greek team at the start of the season). They all made it with only one team.

Greece

54 champions

Greece is in first place and that is perfectly normal due to the dominance of Greek teams in the tournament from the 2000-01 season onwards. In this period, Panathinaikos Athens have won the trophy four times (2002, 2007, 2009, 2011) and Olympiacos Piraeus twice (2012, 2013), so the Greek players have the lead.

Five players have won the Turkish Airlines Euroleague three times (Diamantidis, Alvertis, Spanoulis, Tsartsaris and Perperoglou), while five players have made it playing for foreign teams (Papaloukas twice, Kommatos, Zisis, Schortsanitis, Bourousis). The even more impressive fact of the survey is that, on the highest step of the podium there is at least one Greek player from 2005 until today, the only exception being the 2009-10 season, when FC Barcelona Lassa won the title.