May 23, 2012
OLYMPIACOS brings back coach Dusan Ivkovic
Dusan Ivkovic - CSKA Moscow - FF Barcelona 2003Olympiacos Piraeus will try to turn back the clock on history this season after appointing the only man to lead the Reds to the Euroleague title, Dusan Ivkovic, as the team’s new head coach. Ivkovic, the only coach to win all four major European titles, replaces Panagiotis Giannakis, who guided Olympiacos to the Euroleague Final Four in each of the past two seasons. Ivkovic, 66, spent three season with the Reds between 1996 and 1999, helping the team to the triple crown, including its first and only Euroleague crown in 1997. Ivkovic and Olympiacos also reached the 1999 Final Four. He is regarded a dean among European coaches and was honored as one of 50 legends of the first 50 years of European club basketball in 2008. Ivkovic returns to the Euroleague for the first time since guiding Dynamo Moscow to the 2007 Quarterfinal Playoffs. He has stayed active in the meantime as the Serbian national team coach, leading that team to a silver medal at EuroBasket 2009.

"Olympiacos is a very big club and I feel extremely happy to return here and take over the team after 11 years," Ivkovic said. "It ‘s too early to talk about the signings, but one thing is sure: we have a lot of work to do."

After a decade-long playing career at Radnicki, Ivkovic made waves as soon as he went into coaching, leading Partizan to both the Yugoslavian League and the Korac Cup titles in 1979. Ivkovic remained mainly in Serbia - spare a stint at Aris in the ealry 1980s - until he joined PAOK in the 1990s, where he won the 1992 Greek League. He then went on to win the 1997 Euroleague championship with Olympiacos, the 2000 Saporta Cup with AEK and the 2006 ULEB Cup with Dynamo Moscow. Three Russian league crowns with CSKA and winning three EuroBasket golds and the 1990 World Championship with Yugoslavia are other highlights of an inexhaustibly successful career on the bench. The full list of clubs he has coached includes Partizan and Novi Sad in Serbia; Sibenik in Croatia; Aris, PAOK, Panionios, Olympiacos and AEK in Greece and CSKA and Dynamo in Russia.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Euroleague.net
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