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All six former Yugoslav republics were among the 24 EuroBasket teams, and it is no surprise that three of them have advanced to the quarter-finals and are title contenders. |
Hosts Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia secured passage to the knockout stages, starting tomorrow and are to be treated very seriously, players and coaches from other teams say.
The legendary Yugoslav and Croatian coach Mirko Novosel once said ahead of a European club championship in which nine of the 16 coaches were from the former Yugoslavia, that “they are all pupils in the class of the Yugoslav school of basketball”.
But is there today, two decades since the demise of the old country, still a “Yugoslav school of basketball” or are the successors now self-standing nurseries and schools?
“Many are looking hard to see it, but there is no proof for it,” says Petar Skansi, who played for former Yugoslavia and has won medals coaching both the old Yugoslavia and Croatia.
Until it fell apart in violence in 1991, former Yugoslavia was a basketball powerhouse which collected three world, one Olympic and five European titles.
In addition, the rump Yugoslavia won two more European and two world titles before even it disintegrated into Serbia and Montenegro.
Then there are coaches not presently involved in the EuroBasket, but regulars on the continental club scene, such as Bogdan Tanjevic, Svetislav Pesic, and Zeljko Obradovic. It is the persistent presence of teams and coaches from the now-dead federation that imposes the question about the Yugoslav school.
A winner of the 1970 world title with Yugoslavia as player and holder of the Euro bronze from 1979, along with the Olympic silver that he took as coach with Croatia in 1992, Skansi says that there are common moments.
“All of these countries have good coaches and are well coached, and all steadily produce good players,” he said. “Most of all, there is the proud tradition we all have that drives new generations.”
Skansi added that the six teams put together would pose a formidable threat for others as well just as in the past.
“If they all made one team today? They would certainly be European champions, no doubt about that,” Skansi said.
