Spartak hands Zvi Sherf head coaching reins

Spartak St. Petersburg signed veteran head coach Zvi Sherf for the remainder of the season on Tuesday. Sherf, 57, has not coached at the club level in over a season since leading Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Euroleague final in 2008. He did coach the Israeli national team during that time, culminating at EuroBasket 2009 in Poland. He takes over for Aleksandar Trifunovic, who resigned last week. This will be Sherf's second stint coaching in Russia after guiding Dynamo Moscow for parts of the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons.

Sherf started his coaching career with Maccabi and was the assistant coach when the club won its second Euroleague title in 1981. Later, as its head coach, he carried the team to three Euroleague finals, and is considered one of the most successful coaches in the history of the club. With Maccabi, he won nine Israeli League championships and five Israeli Cups. Other than coaching in Hapoel Tel Aviv, Hapoel Jerusalem and several other clubs in Israel, Sherf also spent several seasons overseas, and very few coaches in the continent have more experience than him in European Championships and the Euroleague. He coached Limoges in France, won the Saporta cup with Aris Thessaloniki, spent time with its arch-rival PAOK, and later coached in Makedonikos – all in Greece – plus Idea Slask in Poland and Dynamo in Russia. In addition, Sherf was the head coach of the Israeli national for separate campaigns during the 1980s and ‘90s and the past four years.