Barça and Real Madrid are two of the teams that will fight to win the Euroleague in Kaunas this weekend. The two meet in the second tie (8:00 p.m., Dazn) shortly after Olympiacos and AS Monaco do the same (5:00 p.m., Dazn). Barça has not won the Euroleague for 13 years (his last title was in Paris in 2010) and Real Madrid has won two in the last eight editions (2015 and 2018). Both teams have players who have lifted this title. There are ten in total, six from Madrid (the Sergios, Rudy, Tavares, Causeur and Randolph) and four from Barça (Higgins, Kalinic, Vesely and Sanli). We review them.
Sergio Llull (2 titles, Real Madrid 2015 and 2018)
He is the Spanish player with the most appearances in the Final Four. In Kaunas he will play the ninth, all of them with Real Madrid. In 2015 he achieved this title playing at home, in a dedicated WiZink Center, and three years later he repeated, with his second Euroleague, in Belgrade in 2018.
Rudy Fernández (2 titles, Real Madrid 2015 and 2018)
Another of the Real Madrid veterans who was not lost the titles of Madrid 2015 and Belgrade 2018. Like Sergio Rodríguez, this will be his eighth presence in a Final Four. He has one less than Llull because in 2011-12, Pablo Laso’s first on the bench, he was only a few months in the team due to the NBA lockout.
Sergio Rodríguez (2 titles, Real Madrid 2015 and CSKA 2019)
Sergio Rodriguez add two Euroleagues. He won his first title in 2015, with Real Madrid, and four years later, after returning from his American tour (he spent a season with the Philadelphia Sixers after leaving the white team), He got another with CSKA Moscow (2019), being the executioner of Madrid in the semifinals (23 points).
Anthony Randolph (1 title, Real Madrid 2018)
Anthony Randolph arrived at Madrid in the summer of 2016 from Lokomotiv Kuban, and He was in the Euroleague achieved in Belgrade in 2018. In the final he did not have much prominence, 3 points in just over 11 minutes on the track.
Fabien Causeur (1 title, Real Madrid 2018)
Real Madrid won the Tenth in Belgrade, in 2018, partly thanks to him. The French point guard, who signed for the white team that season, was brilliant in the second half of the final. He finished with 17 points and his defense against Kostas Sloukas was also decisive.
Walter Tavares (1 title, Real Madrid 2018)
Like Causeur, another of the players who won the Euroleague in his first year with the white team (Tavares landed at the start of the 2017-18 season). The Cape Verdean center won the title without missing a shot in the final (8 points, 3/3 on 2-pointers and 2/2 from free range).
Cory Higgins (2 titles, CSKA 2016 and 2019)
Higgins put Barça in the final in 2021 with a shot on the horn against Armani Milan. It was his second season at Barça (the first ended abruptly due to the pandemic), to which He arrived after winning two Euroleagues with CSKA (2016 and 2019, the latter with Sergio Rodríguez), a team he played for four seasons.
Sertac Sanli (1 title, Efes 2021)
Until his arrival in Barcelona (summer 2021), Sanli had always played in Türkiye. He signed with Efes in 2018 and in 2021 he won his first Euroleague in Cologne (Germany). After lifting the title he committed to Barça, precisely the rival that Efes knocked out in the final with 12 points in 13 minutes from the Turkish giant.
Jan Vesely (1 title, Fenerbahçe 2017)
In 2011 he went to the NBA and after playing for Wizards and Nuggets, he returned to Europe in 2014 where he committed to Zeljko Obradovic’s Fenerbahçe. In 2017 he lifted the Euroleague with the Turkish team after defeating Olympiacos in the final with 8 points and 8 rebounds (15 PIR and +13 with him on track).
Nikola Kalinic (1 title, Fenerbahçe 2017)
Kalinic was also at 2017 champion Fenerbahçe. He joined the team in 2015, from Red Star, and fHe was one of the most outstanding players in the 2017 final against Olympiacos with 17 points (4/6 in triples), 5 points and 5 assists (24 PIR).