Can Olympiacos surprise Efes?
The first semifinal of the Euroleague will be very hot because Belgrade will host the Greek-Turkish battle between Olympiacos Piraeus and Anadolu Efes. The fact that the reigning champions are qualified for the Final 4 is not a huge surprise, but the Greek presence there it is.
With a smaller budget than many other teams, Olympiacos did it again. At the beginning of the season, nobody believed, even the most fanatic supporters of the Reds that their team will end 2nd the regular season. It was an important achievement for Olympiacos that confirmed their strength during the playoff when they eliminated the strong squad of the newcomer AS Monaco.
On the other side, even if Anadolu Efes is the favourite of the game, the Turkish team had some injury issues and could not dominate the battle as expected. In the last month, Krunoslav Simon, Rodrigue Beaubois and then Shane Larkin were forced by small injuries to sit down and recover. It remains to be seen, how will they perform in spite of those health problems.
Olympiacos surprised their opponents so many times in the recent past, winning 2 consecutive Euroleagues back in 2012 and 2013 when nobody gave them a chance. The Greeks gods were present in the 5 Euroleague Finals between 2010-2017 and actually, also this time they could provide the biggest shock by eliminating the reigning champions. It is only one game when anything can happen.
Image credit: EuroLeague
Article written by Gratian Cormos, Romanian journalist, book writer and mentor currently living in Barcelona, Spain. You can buy his book “How to bet on basketball” ordering by e-mail at: gratian_cormos@yahoo.com
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