The Turkish Airlines EuroLeague map

15/Oct/19 17:16 October 16, 2019

John Rammas

15/Oct/19 17:16

Eurohoops.net

While EuroLeague is held in Europe, it’s a global league that includes talent from all corners of the planet.

By Stelios Toromanidis/ info@eurohoops.net

During a 34-round regular season, you need to have many good players. And that’s why Turkish Airlines EuroLeague clubs have rosters with the best players they can find from all over the world. Of course, some countries stand out and have the most representatives in the competition. The 272 basketball players who take part in the competition come from 38 different countries, with ten of them standing out due to the number of their representatives.

There is no limit on the number of foreign players that can be included on a EuroLeague team’s roster, and, as a result, the clubs’ managements and coaching staffs have the freedom to pick whomever they want without any limitation about their passports.

Of the squads that are participating in this season’s competition, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, Valencia Basket, Real Madrid, and KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz have the most excellent variety of nationalities, since their rosters of 16, 13, 14 and 15 players, respectively, come from nine different countries. Baksonia is the team with the fewest native-born players, with just two from Spain, with the other 12 players having a total of eight different origins. Baskonia‘s total of 12 “foreign” players is matched only by FC Bayern Munich.

Zenit St Petersburg, Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade, and ALBA Berlin have an even distribution of native-born and foreign players, with Panathinaikos having the fewest nationalities, together with Zalgiris Kaunas and Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv.

The EuroLeague teams’ nationalities, in detail:

Place Team Number of nationalities Number of local players Number of foreign players
1 Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul 9 5 11
2 Valencia Basket 9 5 9
3 Real Madrid 9 4 11
4 KIROLBET Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 9 2 12
5 ALBA Berlin 8 8 9
6 FC Bayern Munich 8 5 12
7 FC Barcelona 7 5 11
8 CSKA Moscow 7 5 10
9 Zenit St Petersburg 6 8 8
10 Anadolu Efes Istanbul 6 7 9
11 AX Armani Exchange Milan 6 5 10
12 Khimki Moscow Region 5 8 8
13 LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne 5 8 6
14 Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade 5 7 8
15 Olympiacos Piraeus 5 4 10
16 Zalgiris Kaunas 4 9 5
17 Panathinaikos OPAP Athens 4 8 7
18 Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv 4 5 8

Europe is the continent with the most players in the league, followed by the USA

If we focus on the origin of the players who are in the EuroLeague, we will notice that 65.1% come from 26 different countries of the Old Continent, 30.1% from five countries of the American continent, while there are also players from countries in Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

The number of players from each of the five different continents that have representatives in the EuroLeague is the following.

 Place Continent Number of countries Number of players
1 Europe 26 177 (65,1%)
2 America 5 82 (30,1%)
3 Africa 5 10 (3,7%)
4 Oceania 1 2 (0,7%)
5 Asia 1 1 (0,4%)
Total 5 continents 38 countries 272 players

The 272 players of the 18 clubs in this season’s competition come from 38 different countries.

Clarifications regarding the choice of nationality for the players:

1) Before we present in detail all the countries and their respective players, we should point out that we classify each player according to the national team he represents in big international competitions. In case a player does not compete in a national team, then the country he was born in or his ancestral homeland of origin is chosen as his nationality.

For example, Nikola Mirotic may have been born in Montenegro, but we classify him as a Spaniard since that is the country’s national team he has chosen to represent.

2) In contrast, Luis Scola has both Argentinian and Spanish passports, but he has chosen to represent the national team of the country in which he was born, Argentina, in international competitions, so we classify him under Argentinian players.

3) There are some players, like Jaycee Carroll, who is American but who also has a passport from Azerbaijan, a country he has represented in a few games (in two, to be precise). Despite that, those games were held in EuroBasket qualifiers and not in any major competition. In this case, the player is classified as an American.

Here are, in detail, the countries that didn’t make the Top10.

 Place Country Number of players Players (Team)
11 Argentina 7 Leandro Bolmaro (Barcelona)

Facundo Campazzo (Madrid)

Nicolas Laprovittola (Madrid)

Gabriel Deck (Madrid)

Luca Vildoza (Baskonia)

Patricio Garino (Baskonia)

Luis Scola (Milan)

12 Croatia 6 Ante Tomic (Barcelona)

Mario Nakic (Madrid)

Krunoslav Simon (Efes)

Leon Radosevic (Bayern)

Matej Rudan (Bayern)

Kresimir Nikic (ALBA)

13 Israel 5 Omri Casspi (Maccabi)

Deni Avdija (Maccabi)

John Dibartolomeo (Maccabi)

Jake Cohen (Maccabi)

Yovel Zoosman (Maccabi)

Latvia 5 Rolands Smits (Barcelona)

Janis Strelnieks (CSKA)

Janis Timma (Khimki)

Dairis Bertans (Khimki)

Rihards Lomazs (Villeurbanne)

Nigeria 5 Michael Eric (Baskonia)

Youssoupha Fall (Baskonia)

Michael Ojo (Zvezda)

Landry Nnoko (ALBA)

Tonye Jekiri (Villeurbanne)

16 Bosnia Herzegovina 4 Ajdin Penava (Baskonia)

Tarik Biberovic (Fenerbahce)

Alex Renfroe (Zenit)

Nihad Dedovic (Bayern)

17 Sweden 3 Jeffery Taylor (Madrid)

Jonas Jerebko (Khimki)

Marcus Eriksson (ALBA)

18 Canada 2 Kevin Pangos (Barcelona)

Nikolas Stauskas (Baskonia)

Ukraine 2 Artem Pustovyi (Barcelona)

Joel Bolomboy (CSKA)

Australia 2 Jock Landale (Zalgiris)

Brock Motum (Valencia)

Belgium 2 Sam Van Rossom (Valencia)

Ismael Bako (Villeurbanne)

Senegal 2 Mouhammad Faye (Zvezda)

Maurice Ndour (Valencia)

Mexico 2 Alex Perez (Zalgiris)

Gustavo Ayon (Zenit)

Montenegro 2 Tyrese Rice (Panathinaikos)

Bojan Dubljevic (Valencia)

25 Ghana 1 Benjamin Bentil (Panathinaikos)
Hungary 1 Adam Hanga (Barcelona)
Cape Verde 1 Walter Tavares (Madrid)
Uruguay 1 Jayson Granger (Baskonia)
Georgia 1 Tornike Shengelia (Baskonia)
Jordan 1 Ahmet Duverioglu (Fenerbahce)
Czech Republic 1 Jan Vesely (Fenerbahce)
Netherlands 1 Aaron Doornekamp (Valencia)
Bulgaria 1 Sasha Vezenkov (Olympiacos)
Poland 1 Mateusz Ponitka (Zenit)
Finland 1 Petteri Koponen (Bayern)
Iceland 1 Martin Hermannsson (ALBA)
Slovenia 1 Anthony Randolph (Madrid)
Tunisia 1 Salah Mejri (Madrid)

Here are the ten countries that have the most representatives in the competition, in the form of a countdown.

10. Italy (11 players)

   Name Position Team
1 Achille Polonara Center Baskonia
2 Luigi Datome Forward Fenerbahce
3 Daniel Hackett Guard CSKA
4 Diego Flaccadori Guard Bayern
5 Sasha Grant Forward Bayern
6 Christian Burns Forward Milan
7 Andrea Cinciarini Guard Milan
8 Amedeo Della Valle Guard Milan
9 Paul Biligha Center Milan
10 Riccardo Moraschini Guard Milan

Even with only one EuroLeague team, AX Armani Exchange Milan, Italy is in 10th place with 11 players. Six of them play on teams in Spain, Turkey, Russia, and Germany and have an essential role in the rotations of those clubs.

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