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The commission invited Europe's national basketball federations to send their national domestic league champions, L'Equipe donated a trophy, and in 1958, the FIBA European Cup For Men's Champion Clubs, or, FIBA European Champions' Cup, started, with the inaugural 1958 FIBA European Champions Cup season.
Clubs from Eastern Europe (from the former Soviet bloc) dominated the early years of the competition. They not only won the first six editions of the competition (Rīgas ASK three times, CSKA Moscow twice, and Dinamo Tbilisi once), but also managed to reach the finals as runners-up four times in the first six years (Academic twice, Dinamo Tbilisi once, and Rīgas ASK once).
The 2.18 m (7'2") tall Soviet player Jānis Krūmiņš, was the man in the middle for Rīgas ASK's initial league three-peat championship, as he was an unmatched dominant force around the basket.
The 1960s, Real Madrid and CSKA Moscow rise
In the 1960–61 season, things began to change. The main Western European basketball club, Real Madrid, started to show signs of ambition, and was eliminated only after the semifinals, by Rīgas ASK.
However, that same season, the USSR Premier League champions did not participate, because the senior Soviet Union national team (made up of 90% of the players from CSKA) was preparing for the 1964 Summer Olympic Games. Anyway, this season was a big twist for European club basketball, as it marked the beginning of the domination of the "wealthy" Western European clubs.
Real Madrid won the 1967–68 season's final. Real Madrid could rely on players like Clifford Luyk, who was the competition's first naturalized American player with such a big role on a team, Emiliano Rodríguez, Miles Aiken, Bob Burgess, and later Wayne Brabender. In the 1968–69 season's final, CSKA Moscow, inspired by the talented player Sergei Belov, managed to beat Real Madrid in Barcelona in the final. The young Belov had 19 points that night, but his teammate, the big 2.15 m (7'1") tall center Vladimir Andreev, exploded for 37 points in the game.
The 1970s, Varese–Meneghin Dynasty
After the dynasties of the Soviet clubs and Real Madrid, the 1970s were, without any doubt, the decade of the Italian League club Varese.
Varese found a way, year after year, to reach the final game of the competition. In fact, Varese played in all ten of the league's finals in the 1970s decade, and they won five of them. Real Madrid, CSKA Moscow, the Yugoslav club Bosna Sarajevo, and the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv, were the other champions of the decade.
At that time, Varese was led in part by the legendary center, Dino Meneghin, whom was surrounded by other players such as, one of the best scorers in Italian League history, Bob Morse, the Mexican shooter Manuel Raga, Ottorino Flaborea, John Fultz, Ivan Bisson, etc.
In the 1970–71 season's final, CSKA Moscow won its last top-tier European title, until they finally won it again in the year 2006. They beat Varese (or Ignis Varese for sponsorship reasons) in the final, thanks to Sergei Belov's 24 points. Varese, after a tough win in the championship game against Jugoplastika Split in the 1971–72 season's final, won the championship one more time, against CSKA in the 1972–73 season's final. They won the title despite the play of Sergei Belov. Belov, was once again the final's top scorer, with 36 points scored in the 1973 championship game.
What could have been the decade of Maccabi Tel Aviv (six finals appearances, but only one win), eventually became a triumph for Italian League basketball clubs (seven finals appearances, and five wins).
In the 1982 Final and the 1983 Final, Cantù, the traditional runner-up to the mighty Varese in the Italian League, won back-to-back championships, thanks to the young and talented scorer Antonello Riva, who scored 16 points in the first final, and then 18 points in the second final. The former Varese star, Dino Meneghin, who had since joined Olimpia Milano, had imported his winning tradition to the Capital of Lombardy, to play in his eleventh European Final in 1983. But he eventually lost the game, in what seemed like a wrestling match between him Wallace Bryant of Ford Cantù, in what was one of the most physical and "ugliest" finals of all time.
After Cantù's back-to-back championships, Banco di Roma Virtus won the league's title following year. Its American player, Larry Wright led the way in the 1984 Final, as he scored 27 points in the game. Following that was the reign of Cibona Zagreb, and the club's player, marvelous Dražen Petrović.
"Little Mozart", as Petrović was nicknamed, scored 36 points against Real Madrid in the 1985 championship game, and then added 22 points against Arvydas Sabonis and Žalgiris Kaunas in the final a year later. Italy got back to its back-to-back title tradition in 1987, and 1988, as Olimpia Milano, then bearing the sponsorship name of Tracer Milano, beat Maccabi Tel Aviv Elite twice in the finals. Then, in the 1989 Final, the wonderful generation of Jugoplastika Split (Kukoč, Rađa, Perasović, Savić, etc.) took over, and dominated European club basketball, as the team won three straight championships.
The 1990s, the Greek rise
Prior to the 1991–92 season, the league changed its name from the FIBA European Champions Cup, to the FIBA European League. It then changed its name again prior to the 1996–97 season, to the FIBA EuroLeague, which marked the first use of the name EuroLeague, in the competition's history. The 1990s decade saw two of the most exciting and controversial endings in the history of the competition.
In the 1994 Final, 7up Joventut Badalona made up for their last second defeat against Partizan Belgrade two years earlier. That time, it was the Spanish League club's turn to stage a late rally, which came against an Olympiacos Piraeus team with the regular season's best record. Joventut power forward Corny Thompson, hit a three-pointer (just his fifth of the entire season), to put his team up by 2-points, with 19 seconds remaining in the game.
The title stayed in Spain after the 1995 Final, but that time with Real Madrid. Arvydas Sabonis, led Real Madrid to victory over Olympiacos Piraeus in the final, and he won the only major European club honor that had eluded him up to that point, before going on to play in the NBA.
The 1996 Final proved to be one of the most controversial finals of any European club competition. The Greek Basket League club Panathinaikos Athens, pulled off the coup of the offseason, by signing former NBA star Dominique Wilkins, but it was the Croatian center Stojko Vranković, who decided the outcome of that season's EuroLeague Final Four.
Vranković, a 2.18 m (7'2") tall center, ran the length of the court, to block FC Barcelona's Jose Antonio Montero's lay-up attempt, in the last second, to seal the finals win for Panathinaikos Athens. Although the block looked like a possible goal-tend, no call was made, and Panathinaikos Athens became the first ever champions from the Greek League. Although this would seem to indicate that a goal tend call should have been made, the situation is less than clear. In fact, numerous violations occurred in the last seconds of the game, none of which were called by the referees. Panathinaikos had possession of the ball, and with 8 seconds remaining on the game clock, Panathinaikos point guard Panagiotis Giannakis lost possession of the ball (possibly after being fouled, though no foul call was made). As players from both teams struggled to gain possession of the ball, the shot clock was renewed illegally (since the ball was in possession of neither team, a shot clock violation should have been called against Panathinaikos, meaning that the game clock should have been stopped, and Barcelona should have been given the ball, with an upcoming inbound pass). The situation was further exacerbated, by the fact that the game clock stuck at 4.9 seconds for about 6 seconds, thus allowing Barcelona nearly 10 seconds of play.
Olympiacos Piraeus continued Greek supremacy over the EuroLeague the following season, after they won the 1997 Final. Olympiacos had previously lost in the finals in both 1994 and 1995, but their 1996 summer signee David Rivers, proved to be the difference in the 1997 Final Four. Rivers averaged 27 points in the two games of the Final Four, and Olympiacos beat FC Barcelona and it's stars Sasha Djordjević and Artūras Karnišovas in the final, to win their first ever EuroLeague title.
In the first ten years after the EuroLeague Final Four format had been re-introduced with the 1988 EuroLeague Final Four, the club with the best record of each regular season had never gone on to won the title. That finally changed with the 1998 Final, when Kinder Bologna accomplished the feat. That same year, a Greek team, AEK Athens, came in second place; their head coach was Giannis Ioannidis, who had reached the EuroLeague Final Four three times previously with another Greek team, Aris Thessaloniki, in 1988, 1989, and 1990.
Žarko Varajić (Bosna) 47 points vs. Emerson Varese (in 1978–79 Final)
Vladimir Andreev (CSKA Moscow) 37 points vs. Real Madrid (in 1968–69 Final)
Steve Chubin (Simmenthal Milano) 34 points vs. Real Madrid (in 1966–67 Final)
Emiliano Rodríguez (Real Madrid) 31 points vs. Spartak ZJŠ Brno (in first leg of 1963–64 Finals)
Juan Antonio San Epifanio (FC Barcelona) 31 points vs. Banco di Roma Virtus (in 1983–84 Final)
František Konvička (Spartak ZJŠ Brno) 30 points vs. Real Madrid (in first leg of 1963–64 Finals)
