You have to imagine Himar Ojeda, 52, as an internally torn sports director. On Wednesday evening, in the telephone conversation with the SZ, it is important to him to make it clear first of all that Israel Gonzalez, 50, his longtime buddy from study times, is actually the ideal trainer for Alba Berlin, because: “Isra is not only an excellent coach, he also reflects our club DNA perfectly.” So, according to Ojeda, it was a “very sad and painful decision”, Gonzalez, who had been training the Berliners as a chief coach since 2021 and won the double of the championship and cup with them in his first season with immediate effect on Wednesday morning.
Alba Berlin has been in a decent sporting crisis since the beginning of the season: The last (5:24 wins) in the Euroleague, the Albatrosses also have their problems this season in the basketball Bundesliga. With a record of ten wins to eleven defeats, they are currently in tenth place in the table, the season goal, which has now been very downgraded, is the main thing about the way to the-playoffs-actually a shameful as an ambitious capital club.
It is so far understandable that the head coach is flying before the last third of the season. The question that is more likely is: why right now? Fans and journalists have been arguing for weeks, oh what, for months, gave tens of moments to fire gonzalez. For example, when Berlin lost at home against Rostock on December 31, against a team that Alba had loosened in a double match day week of the Euroleague in recent years. Or a month later, on January 27, after a bloodless appearance in Oldenburg (92:97). Even Gonzalez confessed in an interview with the Picture-Zeitung: “There was definitely the situation in which I thought: ‘After this game I will be fired’.”
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But both sports director Ojeda and Managing Director Marco Baldi demonstratively strengthened the back of Gonzalez. Before the defeat on February 2, Baldi said in Munich BMW Park, in which the Berliners then presented themselves surprisingly competitively: “He is a very good trainer who fits our profile very well. Then you think five times whether you quickly sacrifice it in such a difficult situation. ” In general: to sacrifice a trainer during the season, that is fundamentally reluctant to the “Berliner Weg”, according to which it is always about playful development and cohesion and not about pressure to result and convenient blame.
The two club managers also emphasized that Gonzalez would not be punished for the bad luck this season. And also not for the fact that the management had not managed to replace the two key players of the pre -season, world champion Johannes Thiemann (move to Japan) and Sterling Brown (Partizan Belgrade), even to begin with: Wish player Trevion Williams, who came from Ulm, moved to Maccabi Tel Aviv. And the Australian wants McDowell-White had great adjustment difficulties well into January.
So this Wednesday evening you ask Himar Ojeda on the phone: Why now? And he answers her by determining: “Now finally, in mid -March, we are in the position of building something up for the season.” And he is right: It was only two weeks ago that all 15 players were fit and ready for play this season, including the three aftermath of Michael Kessens (from Paris), Robert Baker II (from G-League) and David McCormack (from Milan). And also in the BBL had scheduled Alba for a small run: three of the four past games were sometimes won convincingly, and the leader Ulm was forced to extend it away. And exactly now that the season can really get going, then Ojeda and the other club managers have come to the decision that Alba Berlin needs a shock, a new impulse “,” to finish this very difficult season as successfully as possible “.
Calles should “preserve the core of our Alba-DNA”, the order to the new coach is
At the same time, you can also hear from Ojeda’s versions that in the past few months they really have to have turned every little stone on the Spree before throwing the last (and greatest) into the water.
At the 97:90 Euroleague home victory on Thursday evening against Vitoria-Gasteiz, Pedro Calles was already on the side line, who enjoys “full and long-term trust” (contract until 2027). In January, Ojeda added the experienced Bundesliga coach Calles (Vechta, Hamburg, Oldenburg) as a reinforcement for the coaching team after he was released in Oldenburg last November.
Ojeda vehemently denies that he already installed Calles in January as a secret shade trainer: “I really wanted to bring him to us as an assistant coach before the 2022/23 season. And if I hadn’t signed it in January, he would have been going to the Spanish first division. ” So now Calles, the “student of the basketball culture of Aito and Isra”, should “preserve the core of our Alba-DNA.” So the “Berliner Weg” continues.
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