Despite being two teams rich in history, Olimpia and Partizan (they play in Belgrade, tomorrow at 20:45) have rarely faced each other in official games. The first dates back to the 1987/88 season, the year of the third Champions Cup triumph for Milan. Olimpia won 93-83 in Milan with 34 points by Bob McAdoo who erased the 34-point losing effort by Goran Grbovic. Partizan was a mix of veterans like Grbovic and Zeljko Obradovic and emerging youngsters like Vlade Divac, Zarko Paspalj and Sasha Djordjevic. In the return game at Pionir, Partizan won 92-85 with another 26 points gem by Grbovic, while McAdoo scored again 31 points. Partizan was strong enough to earn a berth to the Final Four in Ghent, where they many considered them to be the favorites. However, they lost to Maccabi in the semifinal game, and the final clash with Olimpia, who won the championship by beating Aris Thessaloniki first and Maccabi later, didn’t take place.

In 1991/92 they met again at a different time in their respective histories: Divac and Paspalj had left the team to go to the NBA and the new leaders were Djordjevic and 22-year-old Sasha Danilovic, while Obradovic was the team’s rookie coach. Olimpia had ended the D’Antoni-McAdoo-Meneghin dynasty and had been quickly rebuilt around Mike D’Antoni’s new job as a coach. The two teams met in the semi-final in Istanbul, where Olimpia was mistakenly presented as favorite. In fact, Partizan had already beaten Olimpia twice during the season, 86-70 in Belgrade (31 by Danilovic) and 94-89 in Milan (23 by Djordjevic, 21 by Danilovic; 29 points were scored by Antonello Riva). Also, being a young team, Partizan improved over the course of the season. In the semifinal, it won 82-75 with 22 points by Danilovic and 21 by Djordjevic, while Milan had 21 points by Darryl Dawkins and 19 from Johnny Rogers. It was a strange game, because Olimpia hit the ground running, going ahead 10-1, but then took a huge 22-2 negative run and went down by 10. Dawkins’ fouls problems affected Milan in the second half, along the poor contribution made by the second unit. So, the final minutes were dominated by the Djordjevic-Danilovic duo who two days later took Partizan to the European title.

During the EuroLeague era, the two teams faced back in the 2008/09 and 2011/12 seasons, with two wins on each side, taking the total to 6-3 in Partizan favor. In 2008 Partizan won 87-76 at home, but Olimpia replied with a 73-59 win in Italy. In 2011, the Serbs won at the Mediolanum Forum, coming back from 14 points behind at the end of the third period with a 30-9 fourth-quarter run (Milan Macvan scored 18 points; 14 points were provided by Nikola Pekovic). Danilo Gallinari scored 14 points for Olimpia. In the second leg, a sort of tie-break game to clinch a berth to the Top 16, Olimpia prevailed 72-66, overcoming a 36-29 deficit in the first half. With Gallinari back to the NBA, that was Alessandro Gentile’s first game in Milan. Nicolò Melli was also on the court. However, the best player was Omar Cook, who 17 points and six assists, while Malik Hairston added 18.