The 2016 continental champion U18 FC Barcelona highlights the first-ever Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament to take place in the Greek city of Patras, an event which will see two clubs making their ANGT debuts. Besides Barcelona, the club with the most ANGT past success in the Patras field is U18 Stellazzurra Rome, which lost in the 2018 ANGT Championship Game. The eight-team field also includes host side U18 Promitheas Patras as well as fellow Greek club U18 Olympiacos Piraeus, Israeli powerhouse U18 Maccabi Tel Aviv, first-timers U18 ZPA Tbilisi and U18 Helsinki Basketball Academy, as well as the U18 Next Generation Team Patras.
2016 champ Barcelona highlights first-ever ANGT in Patras
Article
3 Mins read
The breakdown of the groups are Barcelona, Maccabi, Olympiacos and Tbilisi in Group A while Promitheas is in Group B with Helsinki, Stellazzurra and NGT Patras. The teams will play the others in their group in round-robin style. The top finisher in each group will face off in the first-place game on Sunday. The winner of that game will book a ticket to the ANGT Finals at the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four from May 19 to 21 in Belgrade, where they will join U18 ASVEL Villeurbanne, which grabbed first place at the ANGT Belgrade.
In Group A, Barcelona has played in the ANGT since the 2007-08 campaign, finishing first at the ANGT Valencia last season before falling to U18 Real Madrid in the 2021 ANGT Championship Game. Barcelona took fifth and fourth place the previous two seasons at the ANGT Valencia after having lost in the first place game at ANGT L'Hospitalet in 2017-18. Maccabi will be competing in the ANGT for a 15th time, finishing fifth at the ANGT Belgrade last season and fourth in the Serbian capital in 2019-20. The Israeli powerhouse reached the ANGT Munich first-place game in 2018-19, losing to Real Madrid but getting a wild card to the ANGT Finals. Olympiacos is back in the ANGT after not playing in the competition last season. The Greek side claimed fourth place at the ANGT Munich in 2017-18, third at the ANGT Belgrade in 2018-19 and sixth at ANGT Valencia in 2019-20. Tbilisi will be making its first appearance in the event after replacing three-time continental champion U18 CSKA Moscow.
Group B is headed by Stellazzurra, which has been participating in the ANGT since the 2008-09 season and hosted the ANGT Rome from 2008-09 to 2015-16. The Italian side's biggest success was reaching the 2018 ANGT Championship Game, where it lost to U18 Rytas Vilnius, which also beat Stellazzurra in the ANGT Kaunas first-place game earlier that season. Stellazzurra lost to Real Madrid in the last season's ANGT Istanbul first-place game and went 1-2 at the ANGT Finals. Stellazzurra also lost to Real in the 2019-20 ANGT Munich first-place game. Promitheas is also back in the competition after not playing in 2020-21. The first-time hosts took sixth place at ANGT Munich in 2019-20 after finishing eighth in their debut at ANGT L'Hospitalet in 2017-18. Helsinki will be making its first appearance in the competition while the NGT Patras team is the second version of the selection team by Adidas of talents from other club who are being coached by retired EuroLeague icon Vassilis Spanoulis.