The height and strength of Arvidas Sabonis was the principal difference between the sides. He top-scored for the Spaniards with 23 points.

At the other end of the court the Madrid defence kept the Greeks' key marksman Eddie Johnson under wraps.

The American managed a poor nine points, and with Olympiakos unable to find baskets from elsewhere, their dream of becoming the first Greek team to win the continent's top club competition turned to ashes.

The victory marked a unique personal triumph for Serb coach Zeljko Obradovic, who has now taken three different clubs to European success in four years and has yet to experience defeat in a final.

Olympiakos trainer Yiannis Ioannidis was left with nothing more than a runners-up medal and a familiar sinking feeling. This was his fifth trip to the final four and he has yet to coach a European championship-winning side.

Earlier in the day Panathinaikos salvaged some Greek pride, snatching third place with a 14 point win over Limoges of France. Fittingly it was Sabonis who opened the scoring for the Spaniards with a clinical triple in the first two minutes. He put another two points on the board 90 seconds later to give Madrid an early 7-2 lead.

Ismael Santos added another triple, Joe Arlauckas notched a two-pointer, and before they had found their feet, Olympiakos were 12-4 down and reeling.

Johnson could find no way past the tight guarding of Javier Garcia Coll, and Alexander Volkov, a former forward with the Soviet national team, was left to lead the Greek front line.

"We managed to mark Johnson almost out of the game, and once we'd done that a lot of our problems were solved," Obradovic said afterwards.

Olympiakos slipped further behind and with a quarter of the match gone Iaonnidis called a time-out with the score at 20-8 in the Spaniards' favour.
After the restart the teams traded points and Olympiakos looked capable of dragging themselves back into the game until another triple from Sabonis stretched Real's margin to 34-21, their joint-largest lead of the match.

Seconds later the Lithuanian, now mopping up under his own boards, committed his third personal foul and Obradovic pulled him back to the bench to save him for the second half.

Without him Madrid proved they were more than a one-man team and held their lead at around 10 points until the interval, when they led 38-28.
In the second half Madrid again played the better basketball but could not open up their lead against a brave Greek team who refused to lie down and die.

A triple from Jose Cargol widened the score to 52-40 but Olympiakos clawed back to within seven points at 54-47.

Volkov and Franko Nakic kept the scoreboard ticking over for the Greeks and finished as their team's joint leading scorers with 15 points each.

But as the half wore on, 4,000 Madrid fans in the Principe Felipe stadium, backed by a further 2,000 Panathinaikos followers anxious not to see their bitter Greek rivals lift the cup, began to sense victory.
Madrid then turned on the style.

Antunez ducked and twisted on the edge of the D, threading audacious passes through to the front men, and Arlauckas and Cargol both celebrated late dunks, hanging on the hoops with glee after slamming their shots home.

Olympiakos began to fade and Madrid, in their first European Champion Clubs' Cup final for a decade, cruised to victory.
"Madrid were good in both games and I think they deserved to win the trophy," Iaonnidis said afterwards. "Olympiakos did not play their usual basketball tonight."

Madrid's victory means the cup stays in Spain after Joventut Badalona's win in Tel Aviv last year, but moves from Catalonia to the capital. Olympiakos were left with a depressing feeling of deja vu. For the second year running they have lost in the final to a Spanish team, and on both occasions, the coach who masterminded their downfall was Zeljko Obradovic.