They didn’t stumble into a EuroLeague title. They marched toward it from October.
The championship game in Athens was the final chapter of a season that had been building toward exactly this kind of ending. Olympiakos were the best team in Europe’s top club basketball competition — and they proved it across eight months, not just one night.
Owning the EuroLeague regular season
Olympiakos finished as the top seed in the 2025-26 EuroLeague regular season — a statement in itself in a competition of 20 clubs. Their dominance had a defining moment: a 104-66 away win at Partizan, one of the biggest road victories of the entire season.
The individual awards told the same story. Sasha Vezenkov was named the league MVP and won the Alphonso Ford Trophy as the top scorer, leading the competition in both points and index rating throughout the campaign. On the defensive end, Alpha Diallo earned the Best Defender award — Olympiakos didn’t just outscore opponents, they suffocated them.
Playoffs: No drama, just authority
In the playoff first round, Olympiakos dispatched Monaco in two games — 91-70 and 94-64 — without the series ever threatening to extend. Clinical, efficient, no wasted energy.
At the Final Four in their own city, that efficiency turned into something more physical. They beat defending champion Fenerbahçe 79-61 in the semifinal, holding the Turkish powerhouse to a dismal shooting night from three that never recovered.
A roster built for depth, not dependence
The most important thing about this Olympiakos squad: they don’t break when one player goes quiet. Vezenkov struggling? Fournier takes over. Fournier cold? Peters finds a way. Peters off the floor? Walkup steps in. Milutinov, Papanikolaou, McKissic, Ntilikina — the roster depth is visible the moment you look at the names.
The comeback from 15-3 down in the final wasn’t accidental. Teams without genuine depth don’t do that. It takes character built across a whole season.
Domestic front: Defending what they earned
Olympiakos entered this season as defending Greek Basket League champions — a title won the hard way. Last season they beat Panathinaikos 3-1 in the finals to claim their 15th Greek championship, with Vezenkov named Finals MVP. Running a EuroLeague campaign and a domestic title defence simultaneously, without either suffering, speaks to how well Bartzokas manages his group.
Bartzokas: The architect
Three years. Same club. Two EuroLeague titles. He won the first one in Kaunas in 2023, beating Real Madrid in the final. Now he’s beaten them again, this time on home soil. That’s not luck — that’s a coach who has built a culture so deeply embedded that it survives roster changes, injury crises and 12-point deficits in championship games.
Olympiakos knew exactly who they were all season long. That clarity is what championships are made of.
