A huge opportunity, but also a tough challenge for Sarunas Jasikevicius

For me, Saras is the best coach in Europe. I prefer him over Obradovic and other guys that always had a big budget and solid acquisition campaigns. It is easy to win titles when you move from the richest team of this season to the richest team of the next season or to stay for years with the same club that has plenty of money. Why Saras is different? Because he made amazing things with a low budget and role-players. That’s greatness! Who would have entered the Final 4 with that Zalgiris Kaunas in 2018? Or in the Euroleague’s playoff last season? Who would have won the 3rd place game in front of the powerhouse CSKA in Belgrade? With that ridiculous budget! Not even big OBRA, swearing at the players.

Not the things will radically change for Sarunas Jasikevicius. He will come from a small club, like Zalgiris with no pressure, with almost no possibility to win the Euroleague directly to FC Barcelona, an organization hungry for the titles and with a lot of investment in basketball. The expectations here are huge, especially now after a bad season, when Barca had reached his historical budget and was the main title contender in Euroleague and Liga ACB. The Catalan team lost embarrassing in front of low-budget Baskonia the Spanish title and in the Cup, they were eliminated by Valencia Basket. So, no trophy for the Azulgrana club this year, which is hard to digest for the majority of the fans.

Saras has to bring the glory back to Palau Blaugrana. In Barcelona, he is loved 10 times more than any other European coach, and he is a strong guy that dominates at the same time, his players, the game, the refs and so on. Jasikevicius is currently at the most important crossroad of his career as a coach. Now he can prove that winning titles is possible again for FC Barcelona and if he will do that, then he could aim to many Euroleague trophies in the decades to come, with different teams, as Obradovic did. The best path for him is starting now.

Image: Euroleague

Gratian Cormos

Loading...