Former champion coach Svetislav Pešić surprisingly returns to the FC Bayern basketball team as coach. The Munich team quickly presented a successor to Germany’s world champion coach Gordon Herbert. “I’m happy that the club believes that I can help in such a situation,” said the 76-year-old the day before the Euroleague home game on Tuesday evening (7:30 p.m. on Magentasport) against leaders Hapoel Tel Aviv.
The veteran should look after the Munich team until the end of the season. Sports director Dragan Tarlac said he was very happy to have hired a coach who knew what the team needed now and identified with the club. He reported on rejections from candidates – and was happy about the short-term help from former coach Pešić.
Pešić, who also ended his role as national coach after Serbia’s surprising exit from the European Championships in September, can look back on a great resume. In 2002 he celebrated the world championship title with what was then Yugoslavia, and in 2001 he became European champion. Serbia won the bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. They won the small final there against Germany, which had led Pešić to the European Championship title in 1993.
The experienced coach also won many European and national titles with his club teams – including four German championships with Alba Berlin and one with FC Bayern. He worked for the Munich team between 2012 and 2016.
Curious: Son Marko Pešić will soon be retiring
“We are firmly convinced that he can help us immediately,” said President Herbert Hainer the day after the victory in Cologne. In the first game after Herbert, FC Bayern achieved a commanding 83:55 victory at Telekom Baskets Bonn in the Bundesliga’s record-breaking game. Curious: Marko Pešić, the coach’s son, will quit as managing director at the end of the year.
The now 66-year-old, who has a contract as Canadian national coach from the summer, only won the championship with the traditional club in 2025. In the Euroleague, the injury-plagued Bayern were hugely disappointing this season. The team around European champions like Andreas Obst and Johannes Voigtmann is in second-to-last place in the table with just five wins from 17 games and has to all but write off the play-offs.
