The Panathinaikos maestro added to his legacy in Berlin
Ergin Ataman achieved a three-peat, of sorts
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3 Minute de lecture
By leading Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens to its seventh Turkish Airlines EuroLeague crown, Ergin Ataman reached several other milestones in his already legendary coaching career. One of them is winning the title in each of his last three Final Four appearances.
Coach Ataman led Anadolu Efes Istanbul to back-to-back EuroLeague championships in 2021 and 2022. After missing the playoffs in 2023, Ataman joined Panathinaikos, returned to the Final Four and ended up lifting the trophy. That's three consecutive Final Fours without a loss.
He is the third coach to achieve that in the Final Four era. Zeljko Obradovic did that twice, once with three different squads and the other with Ataman's current team, Panathinaikos. Obradovic won EuroLeague titles with Partizan Belgrade in 1992, Joventut Badalona in 1994 and Real Madrid in 1995. In 1993, Obradovic coached Partizan, which was not allowed to compete due to the UN embargo on FR Yugoslavia. Obradovic did it again with Panathinaikos in 2007, 2009 and 2010. The Greens missed the Final Four in 2008 and 2010, so Obradovic won the EuroLeague in three consecutive Final Four appearances.
Pini Gershon won the 2001 SuproLeague with Maccabi, did not coach for the next two seasons and returned to the team to win back-to-back EuroLeague crowns. Aleksander Gomelskiy (ASK Riga 1958, 1959, 1960) and Pedro Ferrandiz (Real 1965, 1967, 1968) also won three consecutive championship games before the Final Four era.
Ataman's trail of trophies
Throughout his coaching career, Ataman has won four different continental trophies. He won the Saporta Cup with Montepaschi Siena in 2002, the EuroChallenge with Besiktas Istanbul in 2012, the EuroCup with Galatasaray Istanbul in 2015 and the EuroLeague with Anadolu Efes Istanbul in 2021 and 2022 and now with Panathinaikos in 2024. Only Dusan Ivkovic (EuroLeague, EuroCup, Saporta, Korac) and Aito Garcia Reneses (EuroCup, Saporta, Korac, EuroChallenge) have also won four different European trophies.
Ataman has now led five different teams to European trophies. He is the second coach to achieve this. Only Obradovic is ahead of him, as he has won European trophies with six different teams: Partizan, Joventut, Real, Benetton Treviso, Panathinaikos and Fenerbahce Istanbul.
Ataman has also won the Turkish League championship with an unprecedented three different teams: Efes, Besiktas and Galatasaray, and it looks like his golden era with Panathinaikos has just started. The one and only, Ergin Ataman!
