Barça 70–80 Olympiacos: Setback to start

Saranus Jasikevicius' side have opened their European campaign with a loss at the Palau Blaugrana in a game that had both sides on top for long periods, but the Greek visitors made better of their chances.

Barça will now have to regroup and set their minds on the Liga Endesa visit to Fuenlabrada at 7.15pm CEST on Sunday.

The first period was very much one of two teams sizing each other up rather than gripping drama, with the defences standing out more than anything, but the home side did enough to build up a slight early lead.

The second period was very much more of the same, but Olympiacos gradually seemed to be getting more to grips with the offensive side of the game and led by six at the interval.

Barça needed to get things moving more in offence, and the third period saw that happen, with Laprovittola especially impressive. They eventually got back ahead, but all their good work was undone by a 10-0 streak for the opposition. Barça were suddenly eight down going into the final ten minutes.

Laprovittola and Higgins masterminded an immediate blaugrana reaction, but with Larentzakis so inspired from behind the 3-point line they were running against the wind. Time ran out and Olympiacos claimed a win that might have hurt the Palau faithful, but today was just the start of it. There's a very long way to go in this competition.

MATCH STATS

Barça: Satoransky (7), Laprovittola (16), Kalinic (11), Vesely (5), Sanli (9), Da Silva (-), Pauli (-), Abrines (8), Higgings (10), Tobey (-), Jokubaitis (4), Nnaji (-).

Olympiacos: Walkup (5), Canaan (9), Fall (-), Vezenkov (20), Papanikolau (2), Lountzis (-), Larentzakis (12), Sloukas (7), Bolomboy (12), Peters (10), Black (3), Mckissic (-).

Periods: 16-13 / 12-21 // 21-23 / 21-23.

Referees: Sreten Radovic, Damir Javor, Mehdi Difallah.