Olympiacos Piraeus finished the 2024-25 EuroLeague regular season as the No. 1 seed and now face the challenge of overcoming the "first-place curse," with promising playoff numbers but tough Final Four history working against them.
Olympiacos Piraeus finished the 2024-25 EuroLeague regular season as the No. 1 seed. History, though, isn't exactly on their side.
Since the EuroLeague switched to the round-robin format in 2016-17, no team that finished first in the regular season has gone on to win the title. And Olympiacos knows this feeling well.
In the 2022-23 season, they also finished first with a 24-10 record, just like this year.
They handled Fenerbahce in the semifinal but couldn't finish the job, losing to Real Madrid in the final.
That championship game in Kaunas turned into an instant classic, ending with Sergio Llull sinking a clutch game-winner over 2.18-meter Moustapha Fall.
Even reaching the final has been tough for regular-season winners. Only Barcelona (2021), Olympiacos (2023), and Real (2024) have made it that far.
Many point to the Final Four format as the reason behind this trend.
After 27 rounds of intense regular-season action and a best-of-five quarterfinal, everything comes down to a single 40-minute semifinal.
Some argue that it's unfair to the best teams, while others believe it makes the competition even more fun and unpredictable.
Olympiacos, at least, look well-positioned for
