Dusan Alimpijevic, the Serbian head coach, will have the opportunity to lead Besiktas in the EuroLeague from next season after the Turkish club replaced Monaco in the competition.
Over the past few years, Dusan Alimpijevic and Besiktas have achieved remarkable progress. The club has gone from fighting to avoid relegation to becoming a legitimate contender for Europe’s elite competition, although they narrowly missed out on winning the Eurocup.
“Yes, I said three years ago, when I came to Besiktas, after I saw everything – the infrastructure, the fan base, and the passion that the fans showed for basketball – and I saw how big the club is, I said that it was my dream to play in the EuroLeague.
And yes, now this is a real thing. It has become a reality.
So, I’m really excited and really happy. But what’s more important is not how I personally feel or how proud I am of this situation. It’s much more important for our club and our fans because today is a really big day for Besiktas and all our supporters,” the Serbia national team head coach told Eurohoops.
He emphasized that expectations will largely depend on the roster the club manages to assemble while stressing the importance of being competitive from the very beginning.
“First of all, we have to see what kind of roster we will build before we can say what is realistic, what isn’t, and what our expectations should be. But for us, as EuroLeague rookies, we need to show that we can be competitive, that we can play good basketball, and that we can make our fans and the people who love Besiktas enjoy our games.
And for sure, all these big names coming to the Besiktas gym will make it a great experience for our fans. As I said, we have to be consistent throughout the whole season. This is something completely different. People who haven’t played in the EuroLeague don’t know how difficult the schedule can be or what kind of ups and downs it can cause.
But for us right now, because we are entering the EuroLeague market later than the other teams, our priority is to build a good roster that can contribute and be competitive in both very demanding competitions.”
Dusan Alimpijevic also revealed that Besiktas did not begin planning its EuroLeague roster before the official announcement.
“We didn’t start before this announcement because it would not have been professional to build one roster or another before knowing which league we would be playing in. So yes, immediately after the announcement, we started.
Of course, we already had ideas within the club about creating something, and we had worked on that before the announcement. We are very satisfied with it. Now we are adding players to our roster,” the Besiktas head coach concluded.
