Olimpia’s new EuroLeague season will begin on October 6, on the road at Asvel Villeurbanne. This is the ninth time in the EuroLeague era that Milan will start the regular season on the road: in the previous eight games, the record is 3-5, but the last time it happened – Munich, in 2020 – Olimpia came out a winner. Olimpia is 8-8 in its EuroLeague’s debut but have won three of the last four and five of the last seven. Curiously, Villeurbanne’s road game ended the last regular season (with a win) and will open the next. 18 teams will participate to the EuroLeague: for the first time since the 2013/14 season there will be a second Italian team, Virtus Bologna, who qualified as winner of the Eurocup. Compared to last season, Valencia and Partizan Belgrade are also added (which therefore becomes the third city, after Istanbul and Athens, to have two participating teams). There are no Russian teams.
THE ANALYSIS – The season begins in a very severe manner, with four road games over the first five in which Olimpia will play only the second game of the season at the Mediolanum Forum, against Alba Berlin. Then it will have two straight home games against Real Madrid and Virtus Bologna, but counting the first eight games five will be played on the road. The schedule eventually will even itself out, with a double round all in Milan, against the two teams from Istanbul. During the secondhald of the season, however, there is a streak of seven home games over a 10.game span, before closing again with a hard schedule that includes the classic double trip Efes-Maccabi, the last home game with Barcelona and the last overall in Bologna.
BIG GAMES ALERT – Real Madrid is coning to Milan on November 3, for the sixth round. It is a historical classic game with a lot of ramifications and probably even more this season. On 22 and 24 November, Olimpia will play twice at home over a three-day span, against the two teams from Istanbul, the first against Efes: Olimpia’s defeated Efes four times in a row in the regular season, but obviously lost last season’s playoff series 3-1. This is some sort of revenge factor in play and the game is made even more attractive by Efes’ status as back-to-bach European champion. Virtus Bologna will come to Milan on Friday, November 11, for a game that will be different from the usual ones in the Italian league because there is no limitation to the number of foreigners that can be used. The retour match will be played in Bologna on Thursday 13 April, on the last regular season day. On 28 October, Brandon Davies will return to Barcelona as an opponent for the first time. Barcelona will be guests of Olimpia in the last home game of the regular season. Billy Baron will be a guest of the Red Star on December 15, but he has already returned to Belgrade as an opponent. Still on the subject of Belgrade, Olimpia will also be in Serbia on October 18, Round 3, to face Partizan: the two coaches (Zeljko Obradovic and Ettore Messina) are first and second in history for EuroLeague games coached and won. On February 9 there will be the return to Istanbul, against their former Fenerbahce team, of Nicolò Melli and Gigi Datome.
Click here to dowload the full schedule: 2022-23 EUROLEAGUE REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE
