On Tuesday, Andrea Trinchieri still had fun explaining his team’s performance. In a good mood, the coach of the FC Bayern basketball team explained how they defeated French Euroleague rivals Villeurbanne 76:72 despite a mediocre performance. Played badly, won the game, satisfied spectators, passed. Just two days later, the Italian’s mood had turned diametrically.
On Thursday evening he had to moderate a 74:102 pack at Olympiakos Piraeus, which gave him visibly less pleasure. Trinchieri congratulated the opponent several times for a particularly good performance, recalled his decimated team and found that they just didn’t have the necessary energy to keep up at all. Four short sentences, then he turned on his heel and disappeared without a word.
It wasn’t a nice evening for him either in Piraeus, which is currently the gold standard in the highest European competition. The Greeks are top of the table and rush from victory to victory with playful ease, on Tuesday they defeated the great FC Barcelona. After the win against Villeurbanne, Trinchieri was still jubilant with a view to the away game at Olympiakos that “the sky is the limit”. Now his selection was rudely grounded by the noble ensemble of the Hellenes.
If you try to find something positive in Munich’s performance, then you end up with Paul Zipser, who made a thoroughly successful return after weeks of starvation on the substitutes’ bench. And maybe the fact that FC Bayern can now concentrate on the German championship.
Clubs, some of which are highly indebted, are sprouting with dream salaries and dividing up the top European players among themselves
Because with six outstanding games in the basketball premier class and four wins behind the eighth and last playoff place, the final round has long since shrunk to a distant dream. In the past two seasons, the Munich team had reached the playoffs, narrowly missed out on the final four tournament after five tight games – and had to pay dearly for this respectable success. Because in the final sprint of the national championship, Alba Berlin was always more vital – and more successful.
However, not much has changed for the eternal competitor. As in previous years, Alba has no chance of making the Euroleague playoffs, is currently last and will be eliminated after the main round. However, they will not have the advantage of conserving energy on their side this time, the Euroleague will soon be over for FCB too.
Only: why are the German representatives so far behind in the competition with the continental top class?
This can be perfectly explained using the example of the Greeks. In contrast to teams like Fenerbahce and defending champions Efes Istanbul as well as Tel Aviv, Real Madrid and Barcelona, Piraeus is not a collection of the really big names, but the squad is expensive and has twice the top quality in all positions. The core has been playing together for years and has been reinforced for the current season. In Sasha Vezenkov, Olympiakos also has what is probably the best player in Europe at the moment in its ranks. The salary of the 27-year-old Bulgarian is estimated at more than two million euros net – and he is not the only big earner in the team.
Vezenkov was also the best player against Bayern, collecting 18 points despite a long break from work. And yes, Piraeus had had a great day with a three-way quota of almost 65 percent. Nevertheless, the gap between the German representatives and the European leaders seems to be greater than ever. This has to do with patrons and tax advantages in certain countries, sometimes heavily indebted clubs continue to thrive on dream salaries and divide the top European players among themselves.
For teams like Bayern or Alba (whose budget is significantly lower than that of Munich), thrift and creativity are the determining parameters when putting together the squad. Especially since the best actors are regularly poached away. The Munich team is trying this season with the European novices Cassius Wilson and Freddie Gillespie, which sometimes works more, sometimes less well. In addition, Bayern are plagued by injuries; while Piraeus coach Georgios Bartzokas has hardly any sick leave to complain about, colleague Trinchieri was missing five key players. A penalty that runs through the entire season.
Alba coach Israel Gonzales is not faring much better: his team started the Euroleague season with three wins, but since then he has hardly been able to get his best line-up together. In the next game, the two German representatives will face each other in Munich, and the coaches will have to improvise again. A circumstance that will not change in the final phase of the Bundesliga.