“VEF Riga” suffers a loss in the opening of the FIBA ​​Champions League

Riga’s place in the main tournament was already guaranteed, but “Benfica” won in the qualification “Golden Eagle Ylli” from Kosovo, “Keravnos” from Nicosia from Cyprus and “Brose” from Bamberg from Germany.

“Benfica” became the champion of Portugal last season and qualified for the main tournament of the FIBA ​​Champions League for the first time this season.

Last Friday, “VEF Rīga” played the first match of the Latvian-Estonian Basketball League, losing to “Liepājas” basketball players with 93:98. On the other hand, “Benfica” started the season with a failure in the Portuguese Super Cup, losing 84:89 to “Sporting” Lisbon, but then won a convincing victory over “Lusitania” with 111:85 in the first match of the local championship.

In the FIBA ​​Champions League, Jānis Bērziņš “Legia” of Warsaw, Marek Meyer’s “Hapoel” of Jerusalem and Artūras Strautiņš’s “UnaHotels” of Reggio Emilia are competing in the FIBA ​​Champions League, but “Heroes Den Bosch” of Werner Koch-Hertogenbosch did not pass the second round of qualification, which lost to “Unicaja” of Malaga with a score of 58 :114.

The format of the competition remains unchanged – 32 teams compete in eight groups of four units. The winners of the groups immediately enter the round of 16, while the second and third place winners will compete in the “play-in” series in January 2023.

In the quarter-finals, the teams will play duels until two wins in April, and the season will end with the “Final Four” tournament in May.

This season, the team led by Jānis Gailīš is applying for the FIBA ​​Champions League: Džamārs Abrams, Artis Ate, Rihards Berkold, Roberts Bērziņš, Gary Blake, Nasir Brooks, Raivo Butirin, Ilya Gromov, Māris Gulbis, Daniel Hamilton, Emil Krūmiņš, Anrij Miška, Pēteris Pinnis, Kristers Zorik and Vitaly Zotov.

“VEF Rīga” team is participating in this competition for the fourth season, having reached the second stage of the FIBA ​​Champions League main tournament in the 2020/2021 season, and the “play-in” stage of the tournament last season.

The Spanish club “Lenovo” of Tenerife won the final four tournament held in the Spanish city of Bilbao in May.

The sixth season of the tournament was played in 2021/2022. In the first years, the basketball players of “Lenovo” from Tenerife, “AEK” from Athens, “Segafredo Virtus” from Bologna and twice in a row – from “San Pablo” from Burgos were crowned champions.