At the last home game of 2019, the FC Bayern basketball team will be visited by Zalgiris Kaunas on Friday evening (27.12.) - tip-off at 20:30 CET. With more than 14,000 fans per home game, the figurehead of the Lithuanian basketball nation has the most fans inEurope; with 21 championships since the introduction of the domestic LKL in 1994, Zalgiris is also the undisputed top dog ahead of the capital club Vilnius (5), with a total of 31 titles in the Palmarès League. For the German champions, on the other hand, the penultimate game of the 2019 year is all about consolidating their position in the midfield with their seventh win.
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The Audi Dome is sold out with 6,500 fans. In the fourth edition of "Music meets Basketball", German rapper Max Herre and Afrob will perform in an exclusive concert after the end of the game. On Monday (30.12.) the FCBB will play their next Bundesliga game in Bamberg, and on New Year's Day the team will head to Belgrade. The next home game will be the appearance of EuroLeague titleholder ZSKA Moscow in the Audi Dome on Friday, January 10th, also at 20:30.
Tickets: FCBB vs ZSKA Moscow
The latest addition: KC Rivers
The enthusiasm of the Kaunas fans has been noticeably transferred to the team since the arrival of folk hero Sarunas Jasikevicius as coach. In 2018 they surprisingly reached the Final Four and in 2019 - with six wins in their last games the last one at Real Madrid - they reached the playoffs again.
Zalgiris can be expected to make a similar run again, but the starting position is as difficult as last year: they have only three wins to their name, which puts Kaunas surprisingly at the bottom of the standings. The move of all-first-team player Braydon Davies to Barcelona and Aaron White (Milan) has had a negative impact, as have some injuries. However, the team was able to bring in some well known personnel in Zach Leday (Olympiakos/11.3 ppg), Jock Landale (11.5 ppg) and ex-FCBB player KC Rivers (2015/5.4 ppg). Also on board are former BBL pros Marius Grigonis (11.5/currently injured) and Thomas Walkup (9.1).
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"Zalgiris is certainly not where this team and its coach belong at the moment because of their quality. So don't let the current record fool you, we're in for a tough game against a good, strong opponent," said Bayern coach Dejan Radonjic.
FCBB captain Danilo Barthel said: "We definitely want to say goodbye to our fans in the Audi Dome this year with a home victory. There are always very interesting games against Kaunas, we have to be very concentrated if we want to win the game".
"MUSIC MEETS BASKETBALL," number four: Following the highlights of the past years with Max Giesinger, Bausa and 2018 with Sido, two top acts will be coming to the Audi Dome court stage in the evening after Christmas. Hip-hop artist and songwriter Max Herre and his colleague Afrob will be heating things up during halftime and after the game.
Max Herre, after seven years of producing for other artists, unplugged releases and concert tours recently released a new album, called "Athens". Before the 47-year-old goes on a big tour in March, he can be seen at the Audi Dome. The musician, who became famous more than 20 years ago with "Freundeskreis" ("A-N-N-A"), has proven his diverse talent as the musical collection "Athens" contains 90s rap, pop, disco-dub and jazz.
In 2014, the Swabian received the "ECHO Pop" in the category "Hip-Hop/Urban (national)" as three of his albums reached gold status. Among Herre's numerous collaborations with artists such as Clueso, Samy Delux, Beginner and also Udo Lindenberg was also a collaboration with Afrob. Born in Italy, raised in Germany and with Eritrean roots, he is also an integral part of the German rap and hip-hop scene.
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