Euroleague draw favours giants Aris and Maroussi

The Euroleague draw has set up an all-Greek battle between Maroussi and Aris in the qualifiers and handed fairly straightforward groups to Panathinaikos and Olympiakos, after taking place last week.

Maroussi and Aris will face off in the first qualifying round of the Euroleague as the two Greek sides were drawn together in one of the four pairs of eight teams that will fight for two spots in the group stage.

The home and away knock-out ties start in late September with Aris hosting Maroussi at Thessaloniki’s Alexandrio Sports Hall on September 29 and Maroussi staging the return leg at the Olympic Sports Hall on October 2.

The winner of the all-Greek match-up will meet the winner of the tie between Alba Berlin and Le Mans on October 6 and 9, with a place in the group stage as a prize.

The team to lose the Greek clash will continue at the Eurocup, Europe’s second-tier club competition, along with Panellinios.

The group stage draw at Barcelona was predictably good for Panathinaikos and Olympiakos, given that the two Greek sides were seeded as the strongest teams of their pools.

Panathinaikos will face Real Madrid, Armani Jeans Milano, Prokom Trefl, Khimki and Oldenburg.

Olympiakos will play Partizan Belgrade, Unicaja Malaga, Efes Pilsen, Lietuvos Rytas and one of the teams to emerge from the qualifying round.

If Maroussi or Aris progress to the group stage, they will enter the group of CSKA Moscow, Tau Ceramica, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Roma and Olimpija Ljubljana.

The group stage begins on October 22/23.

The top four teams from each group advance to the second group stage, the top-16, which will consist of four pools of four teams each.

The Final-Four will take place on May 7-9, 2010, in Paris.

Finally, in the draw for the Eurocup qualifying round that leads to the group stage, Panellinios were drawn with Latvia’s VEF Riga, with the first match in Latvia and the second at Kypseli.