Olympiakos crowned Europe’s best in Istanbul, defeating favourites CSKA Moscow and defying all odds in front of 16500 basketball fans in Istanbul in the final game of Euroleague’s Final Four.

Istanbul / NationalTurk – Who doesn’t like cinderella stories in sports where an underdog beats the team everyone’s favourite. And even when the upset comes in a most dramatical way..

Olympiakos Piraeus won the Euroleague Fianal Four 2011-2012 in Istanbul on Sunday in dramatic style after being written off even by many of their own fans as title candidates before this season’s premier club basketball competition.

Olympiakos and CSKA Moscow battled it out last night in Euroleague’s final game in Istanbul

Olympiakos defied all odds and won the Euroleague in a fierce and breathtaking game to be remembered for ages. Heavy favourites CSKA Moscow was enjoying a comfortable 19 points lead well into the third quarter until Olympiacos came back and charged into victory in the final quarter. The heated game ended with a 62 to 61 end score, with Olympiacos scoring a last second basket and claiming the title of Europe’s best.

After battling their way to Istanbul, four great teams to compete to be the greatest had been settled as CSKA Moscow, FC Barcelona Regal, Olympiacos Piraeus and then defending champion Panathinaikos. Russian juggernauts CSKA Moscow had bolstered their already strong squad with stars like Andrei Krilenko, Milos Teodosic and Nenad Krstic, Barcelona was confident for a place in the final game and defending champions Panathinakos had gained momentum entering this years’s Final Four to be played at Istanbul’s Sinan Erdem.

Olympiacos Piraeus has defeated FC Barcelona Regal as CSKA Moscow had joined in after overcoming Panathinaikos in the semifinals in the Euroleague Final Four Istanbul.

Olympiakos defy all odds to win Euroleague title beating CSKA Moscow

Trailing strong favorites CSKA Moscow 53-34 midway through the third quarter in the final, Olympiakos dug deep, defended hard and completed a stunning comeback after Gergios Printezis scored with 0.7 seconds left on the clock to give Olympiakos a 62-61 victory.

Having had their budget cut by the economic crisis in Greece, Olympiakos first defied the odds to reach the playoffs and then arrived at the Final Four as the least heralded team to win the most significant basketball event in Istanbul.

Led by their Serbian coach Dusan Ivkovic, a trophy-laden tactical maestro in his second spell in charge of Olympiakos, the Greek outfit upset 2010 winners Barcelona in the semis before overpowering six-time winners power house CSKA.

“I have to thank my players, the staff and our incredible fans who stuck with us through the thick and thin, this victory is a result of tremendous will-power and a monumental effort to achieve the impossible,” Ivkovic told a news conference.

Cutting an incredibly calm figure after the most dramatic of wins, the 68-year old coach added: ‘ CSKA were the obvious favorites not just today but throughout the season and it was our iron-clad defense that turned the match.’

“Of course it helped that I coach CSKA’s fellow Serbs Milos Teodosic and Nenad Krstic in the national team, the former got off to a great start and was their best player but we staged a hardly explicable fourth quarter fightback.”

Defensive play sets the tone of the Euroleague final Olympiakos vs CSKA

After a cagey opening dominated by defensive play, CSKA romped to a 25-13 lead on the back of a treble of successive three-pointers by Milos Teodosic and looked in complete control until the final period.

A twist in fortune looked all the more unlikely because CSKA beat Olympiakos emphatically in both regular season meetings, having won one of them by a whopping 32-point margin in Moscow.

But their offense came to a sudden halt at crunch time while Vassilis Spanoulis, named the tournament’s most valuable player, started hitting jump-shots and dishing out assists to his team mates at the other end, while his counterpart Teodosic, a disliked figure among Olympiakos and Turkish fans failed to keep it calm and turned the ball 5 times which cost  CSKA dearly

CSKA Moscow were still in the driving seat after former Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko gave them a 59-52 lead in the closing stages but missed free throws and turnovers.

CSKA vs Olympiakos : Watch the game winning final shot and Olympiakos fans go crazy

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxiNcVRr89g[/tube]

But the fatal errors from CSKA came from forward Ramunas Siskauskas who missed two foul shots with 10 seconds left and Spanoulis found the unmarked Printezis on the baseline to beat the buzzer and throw 5,000 ecstatic Olympiakos fans into raptures and tears.

‘ Spanoulis was our driving force throughout the Final Four but it was our team spirit and die-hard attitude that turned the match on its head,’ the Greek outfit’s Macedonia centre Pero Antic said.

‘ We never stopped believing in ourselves even when we were 19 points down, we knew we could get back into the game if we carried on playing strong defense and we got our reward.’ he added.

For Ivkovic, it was a gratifying finale as he won the second Euroleague title with Olympiakos after guiding them to their first success in Europe’s elite competition in 1997.

“Now we will party, have a few days’ rest and prepare for the Greek league’s final series against our arch-rivals Panathinaikos, it will be like another Final Four,” said Antic.

‘With a bit of luck, we will repeat the trick and give Ivkovic the same kind of joy he tasted 15 years ago.’

Turkish and Greek fans have watched the game from the same stands and were thrown into raptures together.

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