On Sunday afternoon, Sopron Basket defeated Fenerbahçe from Turkey 60:55 in the final of the Women’s Basketball Euroleague in Istanbul, making sports history. For the first time in history, the Hungarian team won the most prestigious European trophy.
This article was originally published on our sister site, Ungarn Heute.
Sopron reached the Final Four of the Euroleague for the fifth time, finishing fourth three times and second once.
The Sopron girls had to play against Fenerbahçe, a team with international stars, in front of 14,000 Turkish spectators. Never before has a Hungarian women’s basketball team played a competitive game in front of so many spectators.
We came here to Istanbul and won the Euroleague – we worked hard for that! Of course, our goal was to win the tournament, and now we have to somehow realize that we achieved what we wanted. It’s unbelievable, it’s very hard to explain what I feel. All the hard work in training, all the talks, all the difficult moments, all that paid off and worked on this day. The biggest achievement is that throughout the season we always believed in what we were doing, and we did it consistently,”
said the coach, Dávid Gáspár.
MVP of the Final Four was Sopron forward Gabby Williams, who averaged 14.5 points, 5 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 3.5 steals over the weekend.
Sopron Basket is the first Hungarian basketball team (of men as well as women) to win the most prestigious cup of the sport. This is the second European Cup victory in the club’s history, as Sopron had already won the Ronchetti Cup in 1998, which was the second-highest series at that time. For Sopron, it was the fifth participation in the Final Four of the Euroleague after one second and three fourth place finishes.
Sources: Nemzeti Sport, Origo
Featured image: The players of the Sopron team celebrate after their 60-42 win in the first game of the quarterfinal of the women’s basketball Euroleague, Sopron Basket vs Montpellier at the Novomatic Arena in Sopron on March 8, 2022. Photo by Tamás Vasvári/MTI
