Barcelona brings Coach Svetislav Pesic back after 14 years

FC Barcelona Lassa is going back in time to move forward by naming Svetslav Pesic as head coach for the remainder of the season. The announcement was made official in a press conference held in Barcelona on Friday. Pesic, 68, led Barcelona to its first EuroLeague title and the club’s only triple crown in 2003. He spent two seasons with the club and led it to back-to-back Spanish League titles and the 2003 Spanish Copa del Rey. Pesic takes over for Sito Alonso, who was dismissed earlier in the week. Barcelona is ranked 15th in the EuroLeague with a 7-15 record.

Pesic returns to the sidelines after almost two years away; he last coached FC Bayern Munich from 2012 through 2016. Pesic, who won the EuroLeague as a player with Bosna Sarajevo in 1979, began his coaching career with that same club. He has also coached ALBA Berlin and Cologne in Germany, Rome in Italy, Girona and Valencia in Spain, Dynamo Moscow in Russia and Crvena Zvezda in his native Serbia as well as the national teams of Yugoslavia and Germany. Pesic’s decorated career has seen him lead Germany to the title at EuroBasket 1993 and Yugoslavia to gold medals at EuroBasket 2001 and the 2002 FIBA World Championships. He won the 1995 Korac Cup with ALBA, the 2007 Europe Cup with Girona and a total of eight national championships and four cups in three different countries.

"I am naturally happy of coming back to Barcelona and such a great club." Pesic said. "It was a quick decision to make and we finalized it in the last two or three days. I decided to take on this new challenge in my career. My mission here is to help my club, not to make a career out of it. I am here to make this team better, and everybody that knows me already knows that I can give it all to make that happen."