How is the legacy of a legend measured? Zeljko Obradovic was coach of Partisan Belgrade a few weeks ago and his career has left an impossible void to fill in European football. There was one before and after Obradovic, both winning and teaching. If the myth weighs heavily, he nevertheless has an enormous record, crowned by new European Cups: Partisan 1992, Joventut 94, Real Madrid 95, Panathinaikos 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009 and 2011, and Fenerbahçe 2017. In perspective, the next step towards the four best coaches (Gomelsky, Ferrándiz, Maljkovic and Messina) with four crowns each. And if eternity is judged by its influence in the game and in subsequent generations, then it also admits comparison with the old sage. For 65 years, after 34 years, Obradovic created a school for trainers of trainers. He even estimates that 150 players who died like his brothers became coaches “at all levels”.
The list includes illustrious personalities such as Pablo Laso, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Aleksander Djordjevic, Vassilis Spanoulis, Jaka Lakovic, Sasa Obradovic, Mike Batiste… In each of them we guess a part of Obradovic’s story: his passion for the game, the obsessive knowledge that kept him from sleeping imagining the questions he read Haring your players and which you need to know the answers to gain authority, this volcanism. the character, the fidelity to the word, the attentive treatment in intimacy… A genius with many faces.
Interestingly, a hilo conductor unites many of these students who left as descendants. They are all goals, the position that Obradovic occupied on the track during his playing days and which he later considered the cornerstone of his project. Laso, Jasikevicius, Spanoluis, Djordjevic, Lakovic… From base to base, from coach to coach, a particular complexity to transmit wisdom. One exception is Batiste, the American winger who shaped the new year at Panathinaikos and is now an assistant with the Toronto Raptors after serving in that role in Brooklyn, Charlotte, Orlando, Washington and Houston. Obradovic’s chair also came to the NBA.
“It was the first thing I said: ‘Pablito will be a coach,'” Pablo Laso, assistant professor at Real Madrid between 1995 and 1997, remembers today. Obradovic was then a leader who had won the European Cup with three different teams (Partizan, Joventut and Madrid) during his first four seasons as coach. With this background under his belt, his methods are not discussed.
“When a player knows that he is going to be coached by Zeljko, he is more open-minded because he is a renowned coach. The influence he has on a player interested in knowing and learning is very great because he transmits the passion, the desire and the winnings everywhere, from the preparation of a training to a final, why this happens to someone else…. That’s the first thing I said to myself: ‘Pablo, when you come in, because you will be a great coach, you will do what you want, but now I am the one who commands’ He always had a vision that was perfected in his time”, analyzes Laso, one of his most successful disciples, Euroleague champion in 2015 and 2018 with the whites and sometimes in front of the conductor in the group in European competition.
“As a coach, what he tried to repeat the most was knowing how to value each player for what he can do well and what he can give to the team. He was able to value so much that he won a good defense and scored 45 points. It was important that everyone’s work was very important and he knew how to convey this importance”, says Laso, and he admits this “special connection with the bases”: “It was very good in that position and this value because these players were able to be good to themselves and do better for others and for the team His legacy will last forever. 20 years ago, Zeljko will continue to do so in 20 years.
Slovenian Jaka Lakovic is also part of the legacy. Between 2002 and 2006 he wore the green t-shirt of Panathinaikos and his last lesson in Athens also coincided with that of Spanoulis. His coaching career has taken him to the bench of Bilbao Basket, Ratiopharm Ulm and Gran Canaria since 2022, in addition to being an assistant to the youth team and the Slovenia national team. Lakovic does not forget these lessons. “When I met Obradovic, it was my first experience outside my country. I arrived as the greatest annotator in the New World and with him told me that I had no idea about basketball. Zeljko reset me, pushed me to practice in the real game, left me wondering the reason for every play or move. This requires me to have over everything with the basics because it’s the player who has to worry about how it works of the team and he was a fundamental part of his system. From him I learned how to be a true professional and everything it takes to succeed at a higher level. Otherwise, I ended up seeing him as he was sold on the field, he was his idea of life, even if he was never there, he was always there for his players, he protected them as if he were his children. its level of requirement and the importance of detail. And how to behave on the track. No matter how much he won, Zeljko never stopped being a normal person. His legacy is enormous. Nadie can achieve her greatness.”
Obradovic is gone, it seems. En el Partizan began his historic career and at home he came full circle. Nadie knows if she will train again, but Nadie discusses the high priest’s legacy.
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