Hello, everyone! I am not sure if this will be my last blog, but anyway I hope that I have given you a bit of insight of what life is like on a Eurocup team.

It has been a hard first week of the quarterfinals, and it looks like it's going to be harder. We all expected a tough game against Alba and it has been just that: tough. Although we played the first game at home, we know that at this level home games are not something you can rely on. Just look at Bilbao's win at Nymburk and Valencia beating Aris in Thessaloniki, a very tough place to play. Alba had beaten DKV Joventut in Badalona and we already had a loss at home, against Valencia, so we felt it would be a mountain to climb.

The whole city was talking about the game. Everybody tried to get tickets. Everybody wanted to be a part of the last European night in our gym for this season. It was a great experience and at some points we felt that we could win big. But that was not possible against Alba. They are tough, discipline and well organized. I give them a lot of credit for the way they played, and of course, I give us some credit, too, for winning by six points, 67-61. I wish it was more, but a win is a win is a win. We are happy with a win and we go to Germany with the purpose of winning, too.

It is Passover this week, one of the most holy celebrations for the Jewish people. For me, religion is an important factor in my life and it is not easy to mix it together with professional basketball, but I manage to do it. On Passover, we do not eat bread and any pasta or rice, among the many rules that we abide by. In that way, it might be a bit hard for me... more

 Hello again, everyone! I hope this is not my last blog for all of you, because we are getting to the sixth and final game of the Last 16 and still our group results are unknown. It was a tough loss for us at home against Valencia last week: they really took us away from our game. All the credit goes to them and to their coach. They are a great team. In fact, I think they describe the word TEAM better than any team we have encountered so far. I wish them all the best and I would not be surprised if they win the Eurocup trophy.

Destiny is still in our hands if we beat Galatasaray Cafe Crown in Istanbul on Tuesday. It is really hard to understand why Gala has lost all of their games. They are a great offensive team. They barely lost to Valencia in overtime in Spain and they lost only by 3 points to Unics in Kazan. We need to do the impossible and beat them on their home court. We will not wait for Valencia to do us the favor and beat Unics because we know that Unics is a great team and they can beat anyone, anywhere. If we are able to beat Gala and Unics beats Valencia, it will prove the point that I wrote to you a few weeks ago: the greatness and the competitiveness of the Eurocup. Maybe our qualification will hinge on the fact that we beat Unics by 9 points in Jerusalem and lost to them only by 7 in Kazan, or because we managed to make a final basket against Valencia at home and lose by just 6. Whatever happens, the motto our... more

Hello everyone, glad to be back writing to all of you! It's easy to be in a good mood before our flight to Kazan..lol.. I would like first to pay tribute to our fans and let it be a friendly warning to everyone that is coming to play on Jerusalem against us. Last week's game against Galatasaray was tough, two exciting offensive-minded teams battling it out for a win. I know that the 100-87 result seems to show that we dominated the game, but it wasn't really like that. The fans gave us at least 10 points throughout the game. They were loud like I have never heard them before. They put so much pressure on the Turkish team that you could see where all their turnovers came from. Galatasaray is a very good team with great talent, I am sure they will bounce back. The group is widely open and I hope that we can maintain our good start, but we have a mountain to climb this week…Unics in Kazan.

Yes, we are off to Kazan this week, and we know well that it is a tough place to play. This is the third consecutive year that Hapoel Jerusalem faces Kazan in the Eurocup. Two years ago we lost by 53 (I wasn't there so don't blame me). Last year, trying to qualify for the Eurocup, we lost there by 22. So, it's not an easy place and they get stronger and stronger every year. They have amazing players with great quality who have played together for a few seasons. When you go to Kazan you think of two things: first, the long journey from Israel; and second, the temperatures in Kazan. Bur we are not going with the intention to lose. I know that no team will take us for granted, especially not Unics after its home loss last week. We started our game against... more

Hello again, everyone! Three games into the regular season and looking at the other groups, we can see that our group is the most unpredictable one. Ours is the only team without any team either undefeated or winless. And although Aris was the favorite to win the group following their road win in Zadar, their subsequent loss in Lithuania to Siauliai showed that things can change very quickly.

I can say that we started the season well at home against Siauliai. We did not know what to expect and it was a tough game because they are very persistent and did not let us win easily. The next week, on the road at Aris, was a different story, of course. It was great to play in such an atmosphere, and even though the gym was not full, the noise and the songs of the Aris fans were unbelievable. I must add that we also had 120 fans travelling with us, standing out in their red colors, and singing enough to sometimes compete very well with the home fans!

The game in Greece was weird in a way, Aris controlled the first two quarters and slowly the margin went up to 18 points. But in the third quarter we came out a different team and made the game tight into the last minutes. We felt that we could have won the game because we thought that Aris suddenly lost their grip on the tempo and we surprised them. I had a good game, I felt. It is my second year in Europe as a senior player and what everybody says is true: experience is a key factor. Andrew Betts and Juan Dixon played great for Aris and it was hard to stop them, but I guess they found it hard to compete with our self-confidence, too.

After the game, our coach told us that the games against Zadar would be like cup... more

Hello everyone, I am Yuval Naimy, and it's a great honor for me to write this blog as part of the Eurocup family! I am 24 years old and I play as a point guard for Hapoel Jerusalem Basketball Club. Last summer I was a part of the Israeli national team in the European championships in Poland, and there I saw the challenges of playing against players from the top level in European and world basketball. I grew up in Jerusalem and played at the youth levels of Hapoel since I was a boy. When I was 19, I left to play for other teams in Israel, but last season I came back with the hope of leading the team to future success.

I was already lucky enough to part of the Hapoel team that won the ULEB Cup in 2004 in Charleroi, Belgium. I was almost 18 at the time, about to join the Israeli Army, and I did not play a lot, but I did feel as everybody that was connected to the club then that we are part of the sports history of this city and club. That is especially true for me as I was also a big fan of the club since I was a young boy. When I saw Erez Katz, the captain of that team and also a product of the club’s youth program, lifting the ULEB Cup trophy in Charleroi, I remember dreaming that some day it could be me.

Now the ULEB Cup is the Eurocup, but it is the same great competition. There’s a lot of tension, every basket counts, the basketball is of a high quality, in some moments even better than in the Euroleague. Since Hapoel won the cup in 2004, we always felt that this competition was perfect for us. As such, we had a great desire to beat Roanne in the qualifications round so we could be part of it again. Last year we played in the FIBA EuroChallenge and did not do well at all, but I feel that we have the players... more