The gap between Alba Berlin and Bayern Munich is bigger than ever before

In mid-June not much was missing. After a difficult season, Alba Berlin continued to improve in the play-offs and gave Bayern Munich a big fight in the final series for the German championship. If Sterling Brown’s throw hadn’t hit the ring eight seconds before the end of the fourth game, the Berliners might still have achieved the sensation.

Six and a half months later, Alba’s title dreams are further away than ever before in the club’s glorious history. When the Berliners host their big rivals from Munich in Friedrichshain on Sunday (3 p.m.), worlds will collide. Here frustration, crisis and helplessness. There the appeal of the new, euphoria and big goals. The gap between Alba and Bayern currently seems unbridgeable – on three levels.

The sporting balance

Sporting success is the most objective because it can be measured. The Munich team is in first place in the Basketball Bundesliga. The double winner from the previous season rarely shines nationally, but that is not the benchmark given the tight schedule of a Euroleague participant. Bayern have won nine of their twelve games, are going into the cup finals as big favorites and are right on track.

Internationally, they are doing much better than was expected before the season. With eleven wins from 19 games, the team is on course for the play-offs and the record is outstanding, especially in their own hall.

Alba’s season so far, however, can be quickly summarized: As predicted, the Berliners are clearly bottom of the table in the Euroleague, they were eliminated from the cup earlier than they have been since 2012 and the eleven-time German champions are playing historically poorly in the BBL. It is no longer unimaginable that the play-offs will take place without Alba for the first time since the club was founded. Across all competitions, the Berliners have lost 25 of 33 games.

The mood

Of course, this also affects the mood. In Berlin this is – to put it carefully – modest. Players, those in charge and coaches repeatedly point out the difficult schedule and the numerous injuries over the course of the season so far.

The fact that there is still a lack of consistency and that every glimmer of hope, no matter how small, is reliably extinguished in the next game, increases the uncertainty. Those involved seem increasingly perplexed and the fans oscillate between gallows humor, calls for coach Israel Gonzalez to be fired and fatalism.

In Munich, on the other hand, a basketball euphoria has arisen that has probably never been seen in the football city before. On the one hand, the reason is the good results and the spectacular stories that the team delivers.

World champion coach Gordon Herbert has succeeded surprisingly quickly in giving the team a new face since he took office in late summer. Carsen Edwards is currently the second best scorer in the Euroleague, Andreas Obst has set a fabulous record with eleven three-pointers in one game and after two difficult, internationally disappointing seasons under Andrea Trinchieri and Pablo Laso, things are going well again at Bayern.

The infrastructure

In addition to coach Herbert, this also has a lot to do with the new hall. The Garden on the Olympic site opened in September, holds 11,500 spectators and is said to be the most modern arena in Europe. FC Bayern shares the venue with their ice hockey colleagues and is using it exclusively for the Euroleague this season – and with resounding success.

The Munich team won all of their first eight home games, their first defeat came a week ago against defending champions Panathinaikos Athens. There are regularly more than 10,000 fans in the hall and manager Marko Pesic was already sure in a Tagesspiegel interview in May that the Garden would “take the club to a new level”. Infrastructurally, atmospherically and economically.

Unlike large parts of the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich keeps its financial figures secret, but the basketball department’s total budget is likely to be at least ten million higher than Alba’s. The Berliners are working with 14.7 million euros this season, 8.1 of which are for the professional sector.

While Munich will generate significant additional income with the new arena, the indoor issue in Berlin has been a sore point for a long time. In order to stay in the Friedrichshain Arena, Alba has to pay more and more rent, and the wild card for the Euroleague is said to have cost around one million euros. The gap between the two most successful German clubs in recent years is growing – perhaps the 2024 finals were Alba’s last chance at a championship for a long time.