Dejan Kamenjasevic is the head of a basketball academy in Dubai (Prestige Star Sport Academy) and, with the perspective of the passage of time, takes advantage of a holiday in Girona to remember the final stretch of his time in Girona basketball, the title of FIBA Cup with Svestislav Pesic at Akasvayu until the disappearance of Francesc Ferroni’s Sant Josep. Kamenjasevic, however, does so with the reluctance that he is not usually referred to as a “Girona coach” when all his training, and first professional steps, were in the city that welcomed him when he was a teenager and where he continues. living his family.
Dubai
“After Girona, I spent a year in Vitoria (as Zant Tabak’s assistant at Baskonia), but I saw that professional competitive basketball was not what I wanted because of its lack of stability and I left for Dubai. First with Zoran (Savic) and then alone with the PSSA academy (Prestige Star Sport Academy) and the support of Sheikh Mohamed AlRafi. I went from the Euroleague Baskonia to coaching in Dubai in parks and, starting from scratch, the academy now has 700 players from different countries and also locals of all ages. We came to play the Girona Costa Brava tournament and it was seen that we are doing a good job of training. We are the most important basketball academy, before we were the only one and now there are 9, and looking to the future we are looking to make a sports city.
Being from Girona
“In Dubai or Sarajevo I am Catalan or Spanish, however I am here in Girona Bosnian. All my training as a coach has been here in Girona, I am not a coach from the former Yugoslavia, I have never done anything there, because I arrived very young and my family continues here. And now it seems that Lance Armstrong is more Girona than I am. Because? Why was the San Jose project not going well financially? It’s something I don’t understand. I trained as a coach here in Girona, in clubs here, my titles and I collaborated for many years with the Catalan Federation in the training of coaches. Technicians who still continue to train. There are only two coaches from Girona who are now working outside. Fran León, who was doing a great job in Switzerland and will go even further, and I in Dubai. And little is said about him, and never about me, as Girona coaches ».
The end of Akasvayu
“I took Svetislav Pesic to Girona. With him he won the FIBA Cup and then did not continue for what it was, for the problems that Akasvayu and Josep Amat had or for Antonio Maceiras, but I complied by bringing Svetislav Pesic to Girona. When he left I could have gone to Dynamo Moscow on a two-season contract, but I stayed because that was Girona, my home, and where my family was. I went from first team assistant to the under-20s, and I think I met, and then I stayed at San Jose but I’m not the one who went looking for Ferroni and his board, I didn’t know them at all. Ferroni is being sought by Ferroni and Martí Artigas. Then the board saw who contributed to the club and who didn’t, and decided to make changes.
Saint Joseph of Ferroni
“Economically, St. Joseph’s was almost impossible for it to work. The vast majority of basketball clubs are in deficit if they don’t have a city behind them, as is the case now in Burgos, or support from a person with a lot of money behind them like the one I have with the sheikh at the Dubai academy or now Bàsquet Girona with Marc Gasol. Francesc Ferroni and his board dared to take over the club when no one wanted to, but in a time of crisis there was no money and it was impossible. I was unpaid for seven months, putting money out of my pocket, but I can’t say it’s against Ferroni or his board. They all had their jobs, they fell in love with basketball in Girona and then they received criticism.
The legacy of St. Joseph
“Sportingly, the four years of Sant Josep were good. The first two with Borja Comenge, now in Valencia, and the others with Ricard Casas (Barça) and Zan Tabak (coach of Slovakia and Zielona Gora of Poland). Good coaches, always coming to the play-off and making Girona play LEB Or. People like Edu Camós, Pau Vila, Jordi Bataller … And, during all that time, doing a good job at the base. The teams of Sant Josep always played the Championships of Catalonia and had once gone to those of Spain. Now when they qualify to play Preferred A they celebrate. Three players from those San Jose teams have come to play in the ACB: Yankuba Sima and Guillem Jou, who as cadets played with our junior, and Zoran Nikolic. It was criticized because we brought Nikolic, a Senegalese and a Russian, but thanks to them our juniors stopped playing handball, never entering the area, and players like Guillem Jou learned to play with pivots. high in his own team ».
Training in Girona
“When, after Pesic left, Maceiras dropped me to the under-20s, I had Francesc Senpau and Fran León as assistants. And then, in the years of Sant Josep, we had Raul Galobardes, Carles Ribot or Jordi Sargatal. They are the same coaches who now continue to coach the major teams. Senpau and Ribot will coach the two Girona EBA League teams. Where are the new coaches? What has been done in the last six or seven years? And players? Who came after Sima, Jou or Nikolic? La Bisbal announces as a signing for the EBA, Eric Jiménez who was with us in Sant Josep … In those days there was a structure and a system to train coaches and players ».
Girona projects
“Marc Gasol has all my respect. He won the FIBA Cup here and then he’s won a lot in the NBA and now he’s putting money here. In him, as in my sheikh in Dubai, no one can say anything to them because everyone who puts money into basketball should be thanked, There is also a lot of applause for what the Uni has achieved in all these years. Pere Puig has done an impressive job; and La Bisbal also has a lot of merit with Joan Ferrer who will play in EBA with a great coach with Francesc Senpau. They are people who have done a lot for Girona basketball as I also like what Papi Guardiola and Roger Pujol have done with Girona Costa Brava. It’s a very good tournament.
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