Svetislav Pesic appointed as new head coach of Crvena Zvezda Beograd basketball club

Svetislav Pesic (Photo: mozzart sport)

Svetislav Pesic is the new head coach of KK Crvena Zvezda Beograd. This eminent expert has signed a two-year deal with an option to extend the agreement for another season. Pesic will join the team, which is currently practicing on Zlatibor mountain, on Monday, it was announced on the official website of Crvena Zvezda Beograd basketball club.

Svetislav Pesic was born on 28 August 1949 in Novi Sad. When he was three, his family moved to Pirot where he started his basketball career. He played for KK Partizan (1967-1971) and Sarajevo-based KK Bosna (1971-1979) and won the European Champions Cup in 1979 with the latter.

The first team he led as a coach was KK Bosna (1982-1986), after which he coached the following basketball clubs: Alba (1993-2000), Cologne (2001-2002), Barcelona (2002-2004), Roma (2004-2006), Girona (2006-2007), Dinamo Moscow (2007-2008), Crvena Zvezda (2008-2009) and Valencia (2010-2011).

In the rich history of Barcelona, Pesic was the first coach to bring the title of the Euroleague champion to the Catalonians, which he did in 2003. He also won the Radivoje Korac Cup with Alba from Berlin in 1995, the EuroCup with Girona in 2007, as well as eight national championship titles and five national cups.

Pesic was also very successful as the head coach of the national team. In the period 1984-1987 he led the Yugoslavia junior team that featured future international stars Divac, Djordjevic, Kukoc and Radja, and won gold medals with that team at the European junior championships. He also won the 1987 FIBA World Junior Championship with that famous generation.

Pesic led the national team of Germany to its first and so far the only gold medal at the European Championship in 1983. He was the head coach of the German national team for six years (1987-1993). In 2001 he was appointed as the head coach of the Yugoslavia national team, with which he won the gold medal at both the 2001 Eurobasket in Turkey and the 2002 FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis. He is the only coach ever to have won the European and world championship titles in all categories and gold medals at the European championships with two different national teams - Germany and Yugoslavia. What is interesting is that he is also the only active coach who has won the European champion title as both player and coach.