Teams that won the Euroleague, but NOT the domestic competition (part II)
Yesterday we started our trip between the teams that won the Euroleague, but they were not able to win in the same season their domestic competition. There were only 3 cases in the modern era of the Euroleague: Panathinaikos Athens in 2001-2002, FC Barcelona in 2009-2010 and Olympiacos Pireu in 2012-2013.
Since yesterday we presented the Panathinaikos’ case, today we will focus on FC Barcelona’s performance in Euroleague and Liga ACB.
In 2009-2010, FC Barcelona took the Euroleague crown after a huge win over Olympiacos Piraeus 86-68. The MVP was Juan Carlos Navarro who ended with 21 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Other contributors for Barcelona were: Ricky Rubio (9 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists), Pete Mickeal (14 points and 5 rebounds) and Erazem Lorbek (8 points and 2 assists). For Olympiacos, the main contributors were: Josh Childress (15 points and 6 rebounds), Linas Kleiza (13 points and 4 rebounds), Theo Papaloukas (12 points, 3 assists) and Milos Teodosic (10 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists).
It was definitely a historical moment for the Catalans and they were expected to lift as well the national title. In the Spanish League, they were firm favourites to win the league the entire season, since they won the regular season with 4 wins more than Caja Laboral (now Baskonia) and Real Madrid. Everything was perfect for the Azulgrana squad until Finals where they met Caja Laboral, a team with high morale after beating 3-2 Real Madrid in the semifinals.
The finals were best of 5, with the first two games on Barcelona home-court, Palau Blaugrana. But, in the end, they lost the series with an unbelievable 3-0, causing a huge upset to their fans, despite their home-court advantage. The best player from the finals was Tiago Splitter from a team that also contained amazing players like Marcelo Huertas, Mirza Teletovic, Fernando San Emeterio or Pau Ribas. The unexpected result proved once again the quality and the balance of the Spanish championship, were very year the battle for the trophy is extremely tough.
Photo: Euroleague
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
