Few sports can move beyond a country’s borders and take on a truly global audience. Soccer, basketball, cricket, hockey, and tennis are among those few, attracting viewers and potential players from nearly every place on the planet.
Despite the massive audiences each sport draws in weekly, it would be easy enough to think that there is little opportunity for crossover across different sports, yet basketball’s EuroLeague dismisses such a suggestion.
The equivalent to soccer’s Champions League, the EuroLeague has pitted the best teams from across the continent against one another for over sixty-five years. Several of the dominant sides in the league represent the most popular soccer clubs in Europe due to the usage of a multi-sport model. Each season, eighteen teams participate, ten of which use a multi-sport model in which they have an elite-level soccer team.
With the EuroLeague remaining the elite competition in European basketball, here are the soccer teams that have a basketball counterpart dominating the competition.
Honorable mentions – Bayern Munich, Monaco. Maccabi Tel Aviv & Fenerbahçe:
Despite both Bayern Munich and Monaco failing to replicate their soccer successes on the basketball court, both have made efforts to leave their mark on the sport. Neither side as of the time of writing has reached a EuroLeague final, but both currently find themselves in the top ten positions of the competition. Monaco in particular has shown signs of improvement in recent years, finishing third in the league stage of last season, as well as finishing third overall in the previous season.
In the case of Fenerbahçe, the Turkish team reached three consecutive finals starting in the 2015-2016 season, with the side picking up their first EuroLeague trophy amidst this three-season run. Finally, Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv has collected over one hundred major honors in their history including fifty-seven Israeli League titles. Their performances in Europe have seen Maccabi Tel Aviv claim the fourth most EuroLeague championships of any side with six.
Embodying the Real Madrid DNA, the greatest team in European soccer history is also the greatest team in European basketball history. With twenty-one EuroLeague final appearances, eleven of which have resulted in victory for Los Blancos, no team has lifted the historic trophy as many times as Real.
Famous ex-players for Real include five-time NBA All-Star Luka Dončić, who spent three years with the Spanish giants before being drafted as the 3rd pick in the 2018 NBA draft. His final season in Spain saw him crowned the EuroLeague MVP as he helped Real lift the league title. In the years since both club and player have continued to dominate in their respective fields.
Across the last three seasons, Real has reached the final of the EuroLeague in all three years, a streak they will look to continue this campaign. Meanwhile, Dončić was named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year in 2019, as well as scoring the most points in the league across the 23-24 NBA season.
Whilst the NBA’s ‘Greek Freak’ Giannis Antetokounmpo has continued to tear up the NBA, the EuroLeague has seen Panathinaikos, a team led by his younger brother Kostas have similar levels of success. With twenty-two NBA appearances under his belt, Kostas is now part of the Panathinaikos side that went on to lift their seventh EuroLeague last season.
Battling off fierce competition, the Greek side would finish 2nd in last season’s regular season stage, before beating Maccabi Tel Aviv 3-2 in a best-of-five series in the quarter-finals. They would then go onto face and beat Fenerbahce and ultimately Real Madrid, to secure their place as the now defending EuroLeague champions.
Domestically Panathinaikos’ success has been irrefutable. Far and away the best team in Greek League history, the team in green and white have won their domestic league on a record forty occasions. The highlight of Panathinaikos’ domestic success was a staggering run of nine seasons where they were crowned champions stretching from the 02/03 season to the 10/11 campaign.
Even if Barcelona has not quite managed to equal the five European titles that their soccer outfit has won, on the basketball court the club has consistently remained one of the best teams in the EuroLeague.
With Jabari Parker, 2019 EuroLeague MVP Jan Veselý and Justin Anderson, Barcelona’s squad features three first-round picks from their respective NBA drafts. Including the rest of the squad, and then you’re looking at a team that has a combined 1,898 NBA appearances, multiple Olympic bronze medals, and one EuroLeague championship.
So, despite being without a EuroLeague championship since the 09/10 season, the Catalan side has shown huge promise of late, reaching the top four three times since the 20/21 campaign. As of the end of October, Barcelona stands as the league leader, winning five of their opening six games, only losing in their opening game against Lithuanian side Žalgiris Kaunas.
On the soccer pitch, Olympiacos are the reigning European Conference League champions. On the court, the team’s three EuroLeague titles place them as one of the most successful in the competition’s history.
Though the Greek side has been without a EuroLeague championship for over a decade, they have remained one of the best teams in the competition in the years since their last title. Across the last ten years, Olympiacos have finished in the top four places on five occasions, only losing the 22/23 final by a single point to Real Madrid. Aided by the arrival of former NBA shooting guard Evan Fournier in September, Olympiacos will look to go one step further this season and win the EuroLeague championship once again.
For viewers in the United States wanting to watch their soccer clubs in European basketball games, the EuroLeague is available on ESPN3.
Photo: IMAGO / Scanpix
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