Greek basketball confirmed its dominant position in Europe on Thursday night as both Panathinaikos and Olympiakos disposed of respectable opposition to book a place in the Champions League Final Four to be held in Berlin.

The ‘eternal rivals’ will face each other in a semi-final on May 1 that promises to be a tense and explosive affair in the German city.

Panathinaikos will have a shot to play for its fourth Euroleague crown in a decade after beating Montepaschi Siena 84-91 on Thursday in Italy to win their best-of-five Quarterfinal Series 3-1.

The Greens will seek their fifth Euroleague title and fourth under head coach Zeljko Obradovic.

Panathinaikos’s last win came two years ago when the Final Four took place at their home court in Athens.

The club previously won in 1996, 2000 and 2002.

With five crowns, Panathinaikos would match Varese for the third most in competition history.

Real Madrid tops that list with eight titles and CSKA Moscow is next with six.

Panathinaikos heads to Berlin with six players on the roster that won the 2007 title and eight previous Euroleague champs overall, not to mention five players who have won the EuroBasket title with the Greek national team.

Obradovic has won more Euroleague crowns than any other coach – six.

Team captain Fragiskos Alvertis is the most successful active player, having taken part in all four of Panathinaikos’s Euroleague titles.

A fifth would place him second to only the great Dino Meneghin on the all-time list.

Guard Sarunas Jasikevicius aims to win his fourth crown, which would tie him with six other legends for the fourth most ever and make him the first player to win the Euroleague with three different teams.

Olympiakos confirmed its return to the European basketball elite by clinching a spot at the Euroleague Final Four for the first time in a decade.

Olympiakos defeated Real Madrid 75-78 on Thursday in the Spanish capital to win their best-of-five Quarterfinal Series 3-1.

Head coach Panagiotis Giannakis’s team will face its arch Greek-League rival Panathinaikos, in the semi-finals in Berlin.

The Reds were last at the Final Four in 1999, which was also in one of Germany’s biggest cities, Munich. There they lost to eventual champion Zalgiris Kaunas in the semi-finals before beating Fortitudo Bologna to claim third place.

That run capped a series of four Final Four berths in six seasons, including winning the 1997 title in Rome by beating Barcelona in the title game.
Olympiakos reached the 1994 and 1995 title games, in Tel Aviv and Zaragoza, where they lost, respectively, to Joventut Badalona and Real Madrid.

Having attracted players like Sarunas Jasikevicius, who moved from the NBA to Panathinaikos, and American star Josh Childress, who joined Olympiakos last summer, Greek basketball has shown Europe and the rest of the world that it now has the cash to go with the playing pedigree that it has built up over the years.

Olympiakos v Panathinaikos encounters in the Final Four are somewhat of a barometer for measuring the steady progress that Greek teams have made.
The May 1 encounter will not be the first between the Reds and the Greens in what is gradually growing to become a European rather than just a Greek rivalry.

The two sides first met in a European Final Four in 1994, when Olympiakos beat Panathinaikos 77-72 in Tel Aviv but lost to Joventud Badalona in the final. The Greens and the Reds met again at the same stage of the tournament the following year in Zaragoza. Olympiakos once again came out on top, 58-52, but went on to lose to Real Madrid in the final.

Olympiakos’s victories in the semi-finals of 1994 and 1995 seemed empty achievements in 1996 when Panathinaikos made up for finishing third in the previous two seasons by becoming the first Greek side to win the European Championship, beating Barcelona 67-66 in a nail-biting final.

Even then, with NBA veteran Dominique Wilkins in the side, Panathinaikos were producing signs of the growing dominance of Greek basketball.

Having been trumped by their rivals, Olympiakos went on to lift the trophy in 1997. Having disposed of Panathinaikos in the quarter-finals, the Reds went on to thrash Barcelona 73-58 in the final in Rome, thanks largely to the masterful play of American guard David Rivers.

Olympiakos made it back to the Final Four in Munich two years later but were beaten 81-71 in the semi-final by Zalgiris Kaunas. Few would have expected it to be another 10 years before the Reds made another Final Four appearance.

Panathinaikos hit back in 2000, now under the guidance of Zelimir Obradovic, and beat Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Thessaloniki final to lift the trophy again.
A year later, the Greens made the final again but lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv. They made up for it just a year later when lifted the European crown in Bologna, beating the hosts 89-83 in the final.

There was disappointment for Panathinaikos in 2005, when they lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Moscow semi-final.
Redemption came for Panathinaikos in 2007 in front of a home crowd at the OAKA indoor arena. The Greens beat defending champions CSKA Moscow 93-91 in a thrilling final.

Now, a new chapter in the European history of Panathinaikos and Olympiakos is about to be written