Last weekend saw the conclusion of the 2008 Euroleague basketball season with the final four phase played in the Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid in Madrid, Spain.

CSKA Moscow wrote another chapter in their illustrious Euroleague Basketball history by defeating Maccabi Tel Aviv 77-91 in this year’s final to register their sixth continental championship crown and second in the past three years.

For the historical records, CSKA's victory over Maccabi at the Community of Madrid Sports Palace in the Spanish capital moves the Russian powerhouse into second place on the all-time list behind. In fact Real Madrid is in first place with eight wins (the last in 1995) from a total of 14 finals. CSKA have now moved to second place with six successes from 10 finals whilst incidentally Maccabi Tal-Aviv remained in joint third place with Varese but Maccabi (last win in 2005) played in 14 finals whilst Varese (who played all their finals in the 1970s) figured in ten finals.

One has to note also that this year’s final was a repeat of the 2006 final, played in Prague, when the same two finalists made it to the last stage and even in that year CSKA emerged victorious with the finals core of 73-69. The Russian side also made it to the final, played in Athens, last year but had to succumb to Panathinaikos (four time winners) with a very tight score of 93-91.

For the record, the final played last Sunday was a very close affair with the first half ending with CSKA ahead only with a solitary point, 42-41.

CSKA started to pull away thanks to its defense in the third quarter and a 10-0 break at the start of the fourth period settled things early.

For those of who are not so accustomed to basketball, the Euroleague (or historically called, the European Champions' Cup) was originally established by FIBA and it operated under its umbrella from 1958 until the summer of 2000, including the 1999/2000 season. That was when ULEB, short for the Union of European Leagues of Basketball, was created by the 24 richest club teams, most of them from Spain, Italy and Greece.

Amazingly, FIBA had never trademarked the Euroleague name and ULEB simply used it without any legal ramifications because FIBA had no legal recourse to do anything about it, so they had to find a new name for their league.

Thus, the following 2000/2001 season started with two separate top European basketball competitions: the FIBA Suproleague (known previously as the FIBA Euroleague up to that point) and the brand new ULEB Euroleague.

The Euroleague is currently contested in four phases. The first phase is the Regular season, in which theteams are divided into groups of eight. Each team plays two games (home-and-away) against every other team in its group. At the end of the regular season, the field is cut and the qualified teams are divided into four groups.

The second phase, known as the Top 16, then begins. As in the regular season, each Top 16 group is contested in a double round-robin format.

In the third phase, the quarter-final round, the first-place team from each group is matched against a second-place team from another group in a best-of-three series, with two of the three possible games scheduled at the first-place team's home court.

The Final Four, held at a predetermined site, features the winners of the four quarter-final series in one-off knockout matches. The semifinal losers play for third place; the winners play for the championship.

The Final 4 participants this year, apart from CSKA Mocow and Maccbi Tel-Aviv, were Montepaschi Siena from Italy (ousted by Maccabi 92-85 in the semis) and the Spanish side, Tau Ceramica of Vitoria (beaten 83-79 by CSKA in the semi-final).

This format also has its critics as there are those who oppose the idea of a one-game final and prefer a play-off final series on three or five games stating that after all, national championships (except for Israel which adopts a one-game final) are all decided in that way.

These critics also recall the fact that Euroleague experimented with a play-off series in its very first year of existence in 2000. Italian outfit, Kinder Bologna (led by Manu Ginobili, now an outright star with the San Antonio Spurs) then beat Tau Vittoria in a great five-game series.

The main criticism put forward is that to anyone slightly familiar with the game of basketball, it should be obvious that in one game anything can happen whilst a series (every series seems to play out with some sort of story line that builds up from the beginning and develops in many cases in strange and unexpected ways) would eventually determine the outcome much better than one solitary game.

Whilst most of this criticism may be true in essence, the stark truth is that it is not that easy to organize and market a continental championship final series. Maybe I am in wrong in assuming this but I do not think that the organizers would be so daft to throw away both the possibility to pocketing more profits and/or increasing the exposure of the game.

Coming back to this year’s final, many had forecasted that CSKA would make their way to the final but the expected opponents were Panathinaikos but this Greek side, who were the title holders had to bow out early from the competition.

CSKA’s Trajan Langdon (who was shooting like a machine in the early stages of the game) was named Final Four MVP after posting 21 points on 4-of-5 three-point shots and 7 rebounds to lead six CSKA scorers in double figures in victory. J.R. Holden (famous for his last seconds winning shot against Spoain in last year’s European Championships final) added 14 points whilst team-mates Matjaz Smodis, David Andersen and freshly crowned Euroleague MVP Ramunas Siskauskas scored 13 points apiece and Theo Papaloukas added 12 to give the Russian champs another title to add to their trophies from 1961, 1963, 1969, 1971 and 2006.

Popular head coach Ettore Messina, who before the game announced that he had re-signed for another season in Moscow, won his fourth Euroleague title, moving into a tie for second place all-time with legends Pedro Ferrandiz, Alexander Gomelskiy and Bozidar Maljkovic, all of whom trail only Zeljko Obradovic of Panathinaikos.

After the final, the Italian coach said, "I'm so happy for all CSKA people, the fans and ourselves. It was a tough season and tonight we faced a great Maccabi, but we had the character to never panic and to wait for our moment.”