Euroleague Final Four 2022 Betting Preview, News & Predictions
<p><img src="https://www.bet-experts.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/2022-03-04-10-16-8315.png" alt="EuroLeague Final Four"/></p>
<p>From May 19 to 21 this year, Euroleague Final Four will be held in Belgrade. Initially, the host of the tournament <strong>was supposed to be Berlin</strong>, but due to restrictions caused by a coronavirus, it was decided to hold the Final Four in the capital of Serbia.</p>
This will be the second time in just four years that Belgrade will host the Final Four. In 2018, they also hosted a tournament when Real Madrid won the title with a victory against Fenerbahce in the final game.
Semifinals will be played on May 19, while the final game and duel for 3rd place will be on the program on May 21. All games will be played in “Stark Arena”, which has a capacity of 18,000 seats, and all tickets are sold out.
The reigning champions Anadolu Efes, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Olympiacos will compete in this year’s Euroleague Final Four. In the semifinals, Efes will play against Olympiacos, while Barcelona will play against Real Madrid.
Anadolu Efes
The reigning champion Anadolu Efes had a very turbulent season. At one point, they were not even in the top 8, so they endangered their place in the quarterfinals, but after Russian clubs were expelled from Euroleague, it became clear that they would qualify for the playoffs.
There, they played against Milan and they won the series after four games. Milan had a home-court advantage in that series, but Efes won game number one in Italy and that was crucial. Vasilije Micic and Shane Larkin were at an extremely high level throughout the entire series against Milan and were the main source of points for Anadolu Efes, while Tibor Pleiss played a very important role in two games played in Istanbul. Head coach Ergin Ataman stated that Efes will win the Euroleague again and this team is arriving in Belgrade with a lot of confidence.
Barcelona
In the summer of 2019, Barcelona put together one of the most powerful teams in the 21st century when they signed Alex Abrines, Cory Higgins, Brandon Davies, and Nikola Mirotic. After the season in Euroleague was not finished due to coronavirus, and Barcelona lost the title in the Endesa League, Svetislav Pesic was fired and Sarunas Jasikevicius was appointed as new head coach in 2020. The first signing was Nick Calathes, one of the best European point guards.
Everyone expected that Barcelona will win the Euroleague with such a team last season, but they lost the final game against Anadolu Efes even though they had the help of Pau Gasol. Before the start of this season, the team has been further strengthened by bringing in Sertac Sanli, Rokas Jokubaitis, Dante Exum, Nigel Hayes, and Nicolas Laprovittola, so Jasikevicius has two ultra-powerful lineups available this season.
Barcelona finished the regular season in the first place and they are coming to Belgrade as the first favorite according to the betting sites. They had problems with Bayern in the playoffs and they needed to play all five games in that series. If they don’t justify big investments and do not win the Euroleague this year, there could be certain upheavals within the club.
Real Madrid
Between February and April this year, Real Madrid had one of the biggest crises in Pablo Laso’s era. They won only 5 of 21 games in the Endesa League and Euroleague and some Spanish newspapers wrote that coaching change is possible.
At one point, Laso removed Trey Thompkins and Thomas Huertel from the team, while Guerschon Yabusele was financially fined and that had a positive effect. From that moment, Real Madrid started to play much better and in the end, they easily knocked out Maccabi Tel Aviv (3-0) in the Euroleague quarterfinals.
Real Madrid will play in the semifinals against Barcelona, their biggest rival. Since the arrival of Jasikevicius on the Barcelona bench, El Classico has been played 14 times and H2H is 11-3 in favor of Barcelona. Laso has been outsmarted by Jasikevicius in all important games so far, but now he will have the opportunity to take revenge on him in the most important clash between the two of them so far.
Olympiacos
Absolutely no one predicted that Olympiacos will qualify for Euroleague Final Four before the start of the season. There were some people who even thought that the team from Piraeus will not play in the quarterfinals, but Georgios Bartzokas did a great job with this team.
Olympiacos finished the regular season in a high second place, which gave them a home-court advantage in the quarterfinals against Monaco. This was crucial because the decisive fifth game was played in Greece, which Olympiacos won thanks to the great support from the stands.
Before the start of this season, Vassilis Spanoulis retired and that had a positive effect on this club. He had been far from good form for several years and Olympiacos needed freshness and new energy.
Sasha Vezenkov was the top scorer as he played his best season in his career, while Kostas Sloukas and Kostas Papanikolaou were leaders on the court. Olympiacos are coming to the Final Four as an outsider, but it would not be the first time they have won the Euroleague as an outsider.
Odds to win Euroleague
Barcelona – 2.55
Anadolu Efes – 3.75
Real Madrid – 4.75
Olympiacos – 4.80
Barcelona and Anadolu Efes are main favorites to play in Euroleague final game again and thus continue their rivalry that has lasted for several years. On paper, Barcelona is the first favorite to win this competition, but many surprises have been seen in the Final Four in the past.