Teams that won the Euroleague, but NOT the domestic competition (part III)
Today we continue with the last episode of 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.
In 2012-2013 season, Olympiacos came out victorious after a 100-88 win over Real Madrid in the O2 Arena from London. The game started very well for Real Madrid and after the first quarter, they had a 17 points lead. The Greeks made a very good comeback and before the last quarter, the score was tied at 61. They won the last quarter by 12 points, 39-27 and were crowned champions, behind Spanoulis big game (22 points, 2 rebounds and 4 assists). Other big contributors were Acie Law (20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists), Kyle Hines (12 points and 5 rebounds) and Pero Antic (10 points and 6 rebounds).
In the Greek League, everything seemed to be very easy, as Olympiacos won the regular season with 25 wins and only one loss, 3 more wins than big rivals from Panathinaikos. They easily passed over Apollon Patras and Rethymno Aegean in the playoffs but in the finals, they had big problems with Panathinaikos as they lost the first two games of the series.
In the third game, the match was stopped with 1:27 left in the third quarter due to firecrackers and objects that were thrown into the court by Olympiacos fans. At that moment, Panathinaikos had a 4 point lead, 76-72. The fans were ordered to exit the arena, but some Olympiacos fans refused to leave the arena and the game was cancelled, giving Panathinaikos a 20-0 technical win.
To win the Euroleague and not the domestic league in the same year looks like a paradox, but it could happen in strong championships like Spain and Greece, where there are 2-3 strong opponents of top-level that can catch the title.
Image: Euroleague
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
