Former EuroLeague and EuroCup champion Joventut Badalona was away from the competitions for a decade before riding another wave of top talent from its famed youth academy back to the Top 16 this season.
The Club Scene: Joventut Badalona
Club Scene
10 mins read
By returning to the 7DAYS EuroCup this season, Joventut Badalona completed a comeback that saw the team return to a competitive level in elite European competitions for the first time in a decade. Badalona is a city that breathes basketball mainly because of Joventut, its main club. Over the years, Joventut has not only been successful on the court, but it has become a factory developing top-level homegrown talent, which has made its fans even prouder of their team.
Among the elite players to star for Joventut over the last few decades are Josep María Margall, Jordi Villacampa, Tomas and Rafa Jofresa, Juanan Morales, Ricky Rubio, Rudy Fernandez, Alex Mumbru and Raul Lopez. More recently, products of the team's youth department such as Pau Ribas, Guillem Vives, Nacho Llovet, Alberto Abalde, Nenad Dimitrijevic and Xabi Lopez-Arostegui can be seen playing for some of Spain's top clubs. And Aito Garcia Reneses, Manel Comas, Pedro Martinez, Joan Plaza, Alfred Julbe and current Joventut head coach Carles Duran are among the outstanding head coaches to grace the sidelines in Badalona, too.
The pathway to greatness for all those big names was paved in 1930 when the club was founded as Penya Spirit of Badalona. The name was a tribute to Charles Lindbergh, who famously became the first to make a nonstop flight from New York to Paris back in those days. Lindbergh's plane was named Spirit of St. Louis.
Joventut is one of three teams that have always played in the Spanish elite, along with Estudiantes and Real Madrid. It started as a football club with several sports sections, including basketball, table tennis, and cycling. The club changed its name to Centre Esportiu Badaloni in 1932 and chose its definitive name, Club Joventut Badalona, in 1939. The club started to do well in regional and national competitions in the 1940s and conquered its first official title, the Spanish Cup, in 1948, by downing Real Madrid 41-32 in Burgos, led by Eduardo Kucharski. Joventut won win three more Spanish Cup titles in the next decade - in 1953, 1955 and 1958, during which the Spanish League was created. In its first edition, in the 1956-57 campaign, Joventut ranked sixth. It would go on to place fourth or higher every season until 1981.
Two of the club's legendary players, Enric Margall and Nino Buscato, came to the team in the 1960s. In the 1966-67 season, they joined forces with Josep Lluis Cortes, Guifre Gol, Alfonso Martinez, and Juan Fa to lead Joventut to its first Spanish League title. Played in a round-robin format, Joventut had to wait until the final round, in which a 55-77 win against FC Barcelona, added to a 77-75 win by Estudiantes against Real, allowed Joventut to celebrate the league title. Joventut had also made its European debut that season by taking part in the 1966-67 Cup Winners' Cup, in which it lost against Maccabi Tel Aviv amid controversy in the quarterfinals. Joventut grabbed a 32-point win in the first leg of the two-game total-points series and Buscato scored at the end of the second leg to give his team the lead in the series, 83-53. The referees disallowed the basket by calling a very improbable traveling violation, sending the series to a tie-break game in which Maccabi prevailed, 75-51. A year later, Joventut joined the 1967-68 European Cup as the Spanish League champion and reached the quarterfinals group stage. In 1969, Joventut conquered its fifth Spanish Cup by edging Real 82-81 in Orense behind 24 points from Enric Margall and 20 from Buscato.
No more titles came in the early 1970s, in which Joventut signed its first foreign player, Clinton Morris. In 1973, Joventut founded its basketball school, which has become a world-class institution and produced dozens of first-level players in the last five decades. Joventut remained a tough opponent in European competitions and reached the 1970-71 Cup Winners' Cup semifinals. Led by Buscato, Enric Margall, and Luis Miguel Santillana, fell to Soviet powerhouse Spartak Leningrad and its superstar center Alexander Belov. Margall had been joined by his brother Narcis and their younger brother Josep Maria would soon be promoted to the club's first team and become one of its greatest heroes. Joventut returned to the Cup Winners' Cup semifinals in 1972 and 1973, but lost against Crvena Zvezda and Spartak, respectively. Joventut went on to win another Spanish Cup in 1976, beating Real 99-88 in Cartagena behind 26 points from Juan Ramon Fernandez.
Two years later, before the 1977-78 campaign, Joventut signed one of the best players in Europe, playmaker Zoran "Moka" Slavnic, at the prime of his career. He led Joventut to its second league title, sealing it with a 68-115 victory over Baskonia. In European competitions, Joventut kept reaching semifinals stages, losing twice in the Korac Cup - against Torino in 1976 and Partizan Belgrade in 1978, and once more in the Cup Winners' Cup - against Radnicki in 1977.
Its continental competitions curse ended in 1981 when Joventut, coached by Comas and led by Josep Maria Margall, Gonzalo Sagi-Vela, and Joe Galvin, swept Zvezda in the Korac Cup semifinals to reach the championship game against Carrera Venice at nearby Palau Blaugrana in Barcelona, Spain. Venice, led by Spencer Haywood and Drazen Dalipagic, was the favorite and led 82-90 in the next-to-last minute of regulation but Joventut, pushed by an unbelievable crowd, forced overtime on a last-second jumper by Galvin. Joventut went on to prevail 105-104 after as Fabrizio Della Fiori missed near the basket at the buzzer, getting Joventut's party started.
Joventut kept bringing out young talents in the early 1980s, such as Jose Montero, Rafa Jofresa, Andres Jimenez and Villacampa, who became a legend and was almost a one-man club for 21 seasons before eventually becoming its president. It also had key foreign players such as Reggie Johnson, Greg Stewart, Art Housey, and Gerald Kazanowski plus Garcia Reneses as its head coach. They led Joventut to three consecutive Spanish Copa del Rey championship games and two Spanish League finals between 1985 to 1987, but came out empty-handed. Joventut also reached the Cup Winners' Cup championship game in 1988, however, Limoges CSP celebrated a 96-89 victory. Despite winning its first continental title in that decade, Joventut was a bit unlucky in the 1980s.
That would change in the 1990s. Led by 28-year-old coach Martinez, Joventut won its second Korac Cup in 1990 after downing Scavolini Pesaro in the finals. Villacampa had 29 points and Lemone Lampley and Montero each scored 21 in a 98-99 win in the first leg of the two-game finals. Joventut finished the job in Badalona, defeating Scavolini 96-86 behind 28 points from Montero.
Lolo Sainz joined the team as head coach in 1990 with Villacampa and Rafa Jofresa at the prime of their careers. The club signed a star foreign duo, Corny Thompson and Harold Pressey, and had promoted young players Morales, Pardo and Tomas Jofresa. Joventut was first in the Spanish League regular season with a 30-4 record and romped past Breogan, Atletico Madrid-Villalba, Baskonia and Barcelona to claim its third title. It also reached the Korac Cup semifinals and - despite downing Real 71-75 in the first leg, lost the return game 74-80 in Badalona.
Joventut qualified for the 1991-92 EuroLeague and kept the same core of players, which resulted in a fantastic campaign. The team was first in the group stage with an 11-3 record and swept Cibona in the playoffs to reach the Final Four in Istanbul, Turkey. Joventut overwhelmed Estudiantes in the semifinals, 91-69, to set up a championship game showdown with Partizan. An acrobatic basket by Tomas Jofresa put Joventut ahead, 68-70, with 10 seconds left. That is all Sasa Djordjevic needed to get the ball, race downcourt, stop at the three-point line and hit one of the most famous shots in EuroLeague history to give Partizan the title, 71-70. Joventut bounced back in the Spanish League, successfully defending its title in a five-game series against Real, winning Game 5 at home, 85-72.
Sainz was replaced on the bench by Zeljko Obradovic, who had led Partizan to the EuroLeague title in 1992. Obradovic only coached the team for one season but was enough to make history. Joventut qualified for the EuroLeague Playoffs and bested Real without the home-court advantage to reach its second Final Four, this time in Tel Aviv, Israel. It downed archrivals Barcelona in the semifinals, 79-65, to meet Olympiacos Piraeus in the championship game. Olympiacos led 52-57 but was held scoreless for the final 6 minutes. Joventut took the lead, 59-57, on a historic three-pointer by Thompson with 18 seconds left. Olympiacos had the chance to take the game to overtime and even win the game, but Zarko Paspalj missed from the foul line and the Reds missed 3 shots before Joventut started celebrating the EuroLeague title.
After Obradovic left, Joventut was not as competitive as it had been in the previous five years; it placed 10th or lower in the Spanish League five times between 1996 and 2001. Joventut, however, added another cup title to its roll of honors when Tanoka Beard and Andre Turner led the team to a 1997 triumph.
Joventut regrouped and found answers at its legendary basketball school, where the talents of Lopez, Mumbru, Ribas, Rubio and Fernandez, among many others, would help the club soar again. It reached the EuroCup semifinals in the competition's original campaign in 2002-03, but lost to Krka Novo Mesto despite a 13-point win in the first leg of their two-game series.
Garcia Reneses returned as head coach and the team started to challenge for titles again, playing a highly-attractive, intense and ahead-of-its-time brand of basketball. It went all the way to the Copa del Rey final in 2004 before losing against Baskonia. Fernandez, still a teenager, earned tournament MVP honors. Joventut won the FIBA EuroChallenge title in 2006, thrashing Khimki Moscow Region 88-63 in the final. A year later, Joventut played the 2006-07 EuroLeague and, led by Fernandez and a 15-year-old Rubio, reached the Top 16.
Joventut had one of its best campaigns in the 2007-08 season, winning two titles and reaching the Spanish League finals. Joventut lifted the Copa del Rey after beating Baskonia 80-82 in Vitoria-Gasteiz and had a EuroCup season for the ages, winning 16 of its 17 games and dumping Akasvayu Girona 54-79 in the championship game in Turin, Italy. Fernandez, who earned Final Eight MVP honors, and Rubio led a strong team that also featured Demond Mallet, Ribas, Lubos Barton, Jerome Moiso and Edu Hernandez-Sonseca - the first-ever player to win the EuroCup twice.
Joventut played the 2008-09 EuroLeague and the 2009-10 EuroCup, but then fell back and was out of both competitions until this season. The youth department kept bringing out young talents such as Llovet, Vives, Abalde, Albert Ventura, Henk Norel, David Jelinek and Marko Todorovic. Dimitrijevic, Lopez-Arostegui, Ventura, Joel Parra, Arturs Zagars, Pep Busquets and Arnau Parrado made their respective EuroCup debuts this season from Joventut's youth teams and the club has been able to bring in experienced players like Nico Laprovittola, who earned Spanish League MVP honors last season, Nikos Zisis and Klemen Prepelic, among others. Joventut advanced to the Copa del Rey semifinals and the Spanish League playoffs last season and reached the EuroCup Top 16 this year, showing it is taking the right steps to again challenge for big goals soon.