Golden Eagle Ylli

That rivalry has outlasted the club's own worst stretch: in 2008 Ylli withdrew from the Superleague for financial reasons and stayed out for six years, returning only in 2014 after the drinks company Golden Eagle paid for a wild card into the league in place of the excluded KB Drita. The sponsorship stuck, and the club has carried the Golden Eagle name into its own ever since.

Founded in 1975, Ylli is among the oldest basketball clubs in Kosovo, and the name itself means Star in Albanian. Its ground, the 13 Qershori Hall in the centre of Theranda, holds 1,300, and the team plays in yellow and blue. The patience the club showed after its return paid off slowly: a runners-up finish in 1994-95, a playoff final loss in 2014-15, a semi-final exit to KB Rahoveci in 2018-19, a cup final defeat to Peja in 2019-20. Then, in 2020-21, the club won its first Superleague title, adding the inaugural Liga Unike crown the same season and the Superkupa Mbarëkombëtare that year as well. A second straight Superleague title followed in 2021-22.

The 2022-23 season took the club abroad for the first time, into Basketball Champions League qualifiers and the FIBA Europe Cup, where American guard Malcolm Armstead's side beat Brose Bamberg 81-78 away from home before finishing fourth in their group with one win from six games.