Chus Mateo, head coach of the Spanish national team, spoke exclusively to Basketball Sphere in an extensive interview.
The man who began his coaching career back in 1993, and got his first real opportunity as an assistant coach at Real Madrid in 1999, when Sergio Scariolo brought him onto his coaching staff, has come full circle.
He returned to the Real Madrid bench by a different route in 2014, when Pablo Laso was the head coach, and eight years later was given the great privilege and responsibility of becoming the head coach of a team that has won the EuroLeague 11 times.
Chus Mateo won that 11th trophy in 2023, and after three years and six trophies at the helm of Real Madrid, he became the head coach of the Spanish national team.
What makes the story particularly interesting is that Sergio Scariolo succeeded Chus Mateo on the Real Madrid bench, while the situation was reversed with the Spanish national team. Just as we said, it is a symbolic full circle in one basketball journey.
First of all, I wanted to ask you to tell me something more about the event Adria Sports Conference.
Your presence means a lot to people in this region, in the former Yugoslavia. People here love basketball, and everybody knows who you are, what you have done with Real Madrid, what you achieved before that with the Spanish national team, and now with the new generation. So, what can you tell us about the importance of your visit here in Banja Luka?
“First of all, thank you for the interview. It was a pleasure for me to be here. They invited me, and especially Vuk Radivojevic, who was my former player in Spain, reached out to me.
He said, ‘You have to come. People from different sports want to have you here, and they want you to come and talk about your past, your experience, your career, and something that could be useful for the people here.’
For me, I have a great deal of respect for basketball and for the way people in the former Yugoslavia live and breathe the sport. All the countries in this region have managed to maintain a very high level of basketball. So, for me, it is a pleasure to be here, surrounded by people who truly live for this sport.” – Chus Mateo said.
“The influence of Serbian coaches has been incredible”
I would like to ask you something about Serbian coaches, as well as the Serbian basketball tradition, culture, and coaching school. When we talk about the past and Spain, many Spanish basketball coaches have spoken about how Serbian coaches were, in a way, their mentors.
What can you tell us about the influence of Serbian coaches on the Spanish coaching school? And then, it seems that Spanish basketball in the 21st century has managed to reach the very top of the world.
“When I was a kid, I watched and learned from all the Serbian coaches, or rather, coaches from the former Yugoslavia who came to Spain. Especially Zeljko Obradovic, Svetislav Pesic… Many of the coaches who worked in Spain were our teachers and, in a way, showed us the path. Dusko Ivanovic, Velimir Perasovic… All of them were, for us, true masters and a source of learning.
We learned a lot about their philosophy, the way they managed a team, how they worked with players, and how ambitious they were in achieving their goals. For us, the influence we received from them was very important. I think we are doing very good things now in team sports, not only in basketball, but in team sports in general.
One of the reasons for the success of Spanish coaches today is that we know how to manage relationships with players, how to create good chemistry, work together, achieve a goal, and build a solid team. I think people outside Spain now recognize the way Spanish coaches are creating this new philosophy.
Now, for example, there are Spanish coaches working at Crvena Zvezda and Partizan. You also have Albert Riera in Crvena Zvezda football club and Raul Gonzalez in handball national team of Serbia, so there are coaches coming from Spain who represent the Spanish philosophy of work. I believe there are also coaches in this region who come from Spain and represent the Spanish coaching philosophy.
The influence of Serbian coaches has been incredible. And now we are also learning how to deal with something we had not even considered a few years ago – going abroad and spreading our philosophy around the world. Today, we have many Spanish coaches working outside Spain, across all sports.” – Chus Mateo said.
“Ibon Navarro at Crvena Zvezda, I think, is going to be one of the biggest surprises in the EuroLeague”
Can you tell me something more about the Crvena Zvezda and Partizan situation? Ibon Navarro is the head coach of Crvena Zvezda, while Joan Penarroya is the head coach of Partizan. I don’t know if you have seen that information, but it sounds really amazing. Seven of the 20 EuroLeague teams have Spanish head coaches.
“All of them, the seven coaches who are in the EuroLeague right now – Spanish coaches are different, of course, but they share a similar philosophy. I think that right now the game demands more rotation. The game demands a different pace. One of the skills I consider most important for a coach right now is the ability to adapt himself to the players, the club, the culture.
All these kinds of things are very important. I think the seven coaches who are there are very, very smart and very good coaches. Ibon Navarro at Crvena Zvezda, I think, is going to be one of the biggest surprises in the EuroLeague. He is a very good coach. And Joan Penarroya, who already has a great deal of EuroLeague experience, will probably work in a way in his second year that Partizan and their fans want to see.
So, for me, I have very, very high expectations for all of this.”
“The final period with Pablo Laso was an incredible masterclass for me in how to deal with a lot of things”
I want to ask you something about your role at Real Madrid. For a period of time, you were in the shadows, working as an assistant coach, so how difficult was it to perform your role at that level, and then take over as the head coach? You won the EuroLeague. That is something of a dream.
We have spoken to many players from Serbia, including Novica Velickovic, as well as all the Serbian players who played for Real Madrid. Each of them spoke about how special a club like Real Madrid is, in every possible sense. And you managed to do it – you won the EuroLeague as the coach of such a giant.
How did that experience, going from the man in the shadows to the main man, help you progress in every sense – as a coach, as a person, and perhaps teach you even more about how to deal with the pressure from players, the media and expectations? Because we know that both in Serbia and Spain, expectations are always the highest, especially when it comes to basketball.
“Excellent question. Real Madrid is one of the most demanding clubs in the world. The pressure is enormous, as is the noise around you. Someone will always come to replace you.” – said Chus Mateo, before continuing:
The biggest opportunity. But at the same time, you are also under the spotlight. Every step you take.
“Exactly. But in my career, I spent 25 years at Real Madrid. I started as a kid, at 21 years old, in the youth categories, and I got to know the environment. I know how ambitious the club is and how much it demands from you. I know how difficult it is to fulfill the goals the club sets and how to deal with them.
I know that the high expectations the club has are one of the things I have to deal with. As you said, I started as an assistant coach many years ago. First with Sergio Scariolo, then Julio Lamas, then Javier Imbroda, and then eight or nine years – I do not remember exactly how many – with Pablo Laso. I learned a lot from all of them.
The final period with Pablo Laso was an incredible masterclass for me in how to deal with a lot of things. Of course, I had to change my role within the team. At the beginning, the players knew me as an assistant coach, and I had to be a little closer to them and help the head coach more, but at the same time I was very close to the players. I had to change my way of thinking. I had to tell myself: Now I am the person responsible for all the decisions, and I have to change my role within the team.” – Chus Mateo spoke openly about it.
It was not easy, but I had to do it. I also had to deal with all the noise that is always around the team. I think that when you start working as a head coach, of course you notice the difference between the two roles. But the most important thing, in my opinion, is to reduce inside yourself the noise that is always present outside, the noise that surrounds you.
Nothing can affect you or your decisions. You have to be yourself. You have to remain true to the philosophy you believe in and try to show the style of play that you have in your mind and believe in, of course, until the end. Because if you start to doubt yourself during the process, it is not going to be good for you.
I need to be firm and consistent with my ideas and my way of thinking. That, in my opinion, is something that made me a much better coach, but also a better person. Because you have to deal with a lot of news that is sometimes not good for you. Someone is coming to replace you. Someone is coming to be the head coach of Real Madrid.
After that period, during those three years, we managed to win six trophies in three years. Not bad. (laughs) Two Spanish league titles, one EuroLeague, one Copa del Rey and two Super Cups. The most important thing is to do what depends on you. When someone makes the decision to put you in that position, that is great.
When someone makes the decision to replace you, okay. That is something that does not depend on you. So do not think too much about it. Before you go to bed, think about whether you gave everything you had. If you can go to bed peacefully, knowing that you gave everything you had and tried your best, that is the most important thing.
That is the only thing you can demand from yourself when you finish a period like the one we had at Real Madrid. Now I am very excited about this new moment. This is part of a career.
I am a privileged man because I have always looked at the coaches of Real Madrid and the coaches of the Spanish national team as idols. And now it is my responsibility to be one of them. For me, it is incredible what is happening to me. I have to say: thank God and thank life for all these things.” – explained Chus Mateo.
The EuroLeague trophy, Partizan on the road to the title and the comeback from 0-2
On the way to the EuroLeague trophy, you played a historic series against Partizan, when a team became the first in the history of the competition to come back from a 0-2 deficit in a playoff series, win three straight games, go to the Final Four and eventually win the trophy. What was that experience like for you?
“That EuroLeague season was difficult. Partizan had a great team, with many good players, and a great coach in Zeljko Obradovic. Mathias Lessort, Kevin Punter, James Nunnally, Dante Exum, Papapetrou, many good players and a good coach.
We played great and fought when we were very, very bad. Even in the fifth game, we were down by 18 points, but we fought until the end. Sometimes that is part of basketball. It was something unforgettable for me, of course. For me, it was a lesson to always keep fighting, even when everything seems to be lost.
What is interesting is that we won the EuroLeague that season, and the following year we lost to Panathinaikos in the final, even though I think that year, when we did not win the EuroLeague, we looked better. We knew each other better, we knew the system better, but that is basketball.” – Chus Mateo pointed out.
“Sergio Scariolo gave me my first opportunity to become a professional coach”
Svetislav Pesic once said that every coach is kind of stealing from other coaches.
Who were your role models? You worked with Sergio Scariolo, who is also, how can I put it, a superstar of the Spanish national team because he has won almost everything, everything except Olympic gold.. Now that you are here on the Spanish national team bench as the head coach, what can you tell me about your role models during your career and while you were growing up as a coach?
“Of course, Sergio also gave me my first opportunity to become a professional coach, as an assistant coach in 1999. But I learned a lot from him, and I learned a lot from his model, especially about being very strict with certain things. I learned a lot from Pablo Laso as well, after spending a long time with him. I learned especially how to deal with different kinds of egos. A lot of different egos.
And this is very important too, especially in a team like Real Madrid. And of course, I learned from other coaches who are not as famous as them. But always, as Pesic said, you have to take the things that are good for you as a head coach and also the things that you want to avoid as a head coach. So I can only say thank God for this experience.
Life is sometimes about ups and downs. And at this moment, for me, it is a good moment. I want to live this, and I want to gain this experience. It is something amazing to be part of this high-performance basketball that I am experiencing. I hope to have more time to do it and, especially, to enjoy it. For me, basketball is a very important part of my life, but it is not my entire life.
My life is my sons, my kids, my wife, my health. When basketball is over, I will be happy to live these kinds of things.” – Chus Mateo to Basketball Sphere.
