Well I thought of giving my predictions for the Final 4 in London as well, even though I haven't watched all four teams (Barcelona, Olympiakos, Real Madrid, CSKA Moscow) throughout the whole season. Of course I support the Greeks, but I don't have much hope for them unfortunately. In my opinion there are 2 favorites in the semi-finals: On the early match , Olympiakos against CSKA, I think that the Russians have the advantage, while in the Spanish battle, I believe Real Madrid is a much better team than Barcelona.
The Greek Champions of Europe are still a great team and they deserve to be at the O2 Arena, but the injury of play-maker Vangelis Mantzaris and the luck of form lately of the Euroleague's MVP Vassilis Spanoulis make them have less of a chance against the "Russian Bear". CSKA has as well major problems with the point guard position, as Milos Teodosic is not a very stable player, while his back-up Theodoros Papaloukas has recently reached 36 years old... So probably the game will be fought mainly closer to the basket, where the team of coach Etore Messina has definitely the advantage.
The late match on Friday between Barcelona and Madrid is more interesting and delicate, as whenever the teams from the same country meet on a Final 4 you can never tell who could go through. Nevertheless, Real beat Barcelona recently by 15 points and also, has the greatest small forward in Europe at the moment, Rudy Fernandez, who can be the absolute leader for the historically biggest team in Europe. On the other hand, the Catalan's leader Juan Carlos Navarro has not been playing amazingly for a year or so now, especially due to his several injuries.
As for the possible final on Sunday, I think that the strength of Madrid in the guards will prove more important than the power CSKA has in the frontline. Real will probably manage to block Teodosic in defence and will try to run on the fast break, where of course they have the advantage. So to conclude, unless Messina, the best coach in the Final 4 has some extra tricks up his sleeves, I don't see how Madrid could miss this trophy after 18 years, without a European title.
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