MADRID, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thursday sees the start of the annual Copa del Rey in Spanish Basketball, a knockout competition that promises four days of thrilling basketball.

This year's Copa del Rey is held in the Palau San Jordi in Barcelona and brings together sides who occupied the top eight positions in the Endesa ACB league table at the halfway point of the season.

It is the first tine the Copa has been played in Barcelona since 1986 and almost 13,000 fans can be expected to fill the venue for the four days of the event.

The Copa is played in a straight knockout format with two quarter-finals held on Thursday, two more quarter-finals on Friday, the semi-finals on Saturday and the final on Sunday.

The eight sides taking part are Regal Barcelona, Real Madrid, Caja Laboral, Unicaja Malaga, Lucentum Alicante, Banca Civica, Lagun Aro and Fuenlabrada.

If results go according to seeding, Sunday's final will see Barcelona play Real Madrid, but the beauty of the Copa is that in 40 minutes on court almost anything can happen, especially as coaches have to try and dose their players' efforts in order to reach the final in the best possible condition.

The Copa del Rey is Basketball in its purest state when the slightest error can make the difference between success or failure.