Svetislav Pesic spoke about the challenges of leading the Serbian national team during the international qualification windows, saying qualifying was harder than winning medals.
FC Bayern Munich coach Svetislav Pesic once again addressed the challenges surrounding the Serbia national team, pointing to the difficulty of qualifying for major tournaments under the current international window system.
Pesic, who previously led Serbia to World Cup silver and Olympic bronze, said that simply reaching major competitions was one of the toughest tasks during his time as national team head coach.
“My biggest success were not the medals, but the fact that we even qualified,” Pesic said per Basketball World.
Under the current FIBA calendar, qualification games often take place during the club season. Because of that, many top players who compete in the NBA and EuroLeague cannot join the national team for those games. According to Pesic, that makes building a stable roster extremely difficult.
“We do not even know who will play. At that time we were lucky because we played the qualifiers against Greece and Turkiye in August and managed to beat them,” Pesic added, recalling the qualification process during his time with the team.
Serbia is currently facing a complicated situation in the World Cup qualifiers after two losses against Turkiye, putting additional pressure on the national team.
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