Zenit St Petersburg head coach Xavi Pascual has been coaching in the EuroLeague for over a decade. Learn about his greatest influences and those he has impacted on his coaching journey.
Coaching fraternity: Xavi Pascual, Zenit St Petersburg
Interviews
7 Mins read
Influences are everything for elite head coaches. They grew up as basketball fans and students of the game. With or without playing backgrounds, all Turkish Airlines EuroLeague head coaches had mentors or were influenced by certain people to get where they are today, running teams in what is perhaps the richest competition in the world in terms of tactics. And many of them have left marks on their assistant coaches or former players who have gone on to pick up a whistle and a coaching board.
Zenit St Petersburg head coach Xavi Pascual has been coaching in the EuroLeague for over a decade. His entry point was as an assistant coach to Dusko Ivanovic at FC Barcelona. Pascual soon took over the head coaching seat and kept it for eight years. He also coached Panathinaikos OPAP Athens before joining Zenit midway through the 2019-20 campaign. For Pascual, coaching is all about learning. Thinking that you possess all the basketball knowledge in the world is wrong, and you must remain humble and focused.
"I am trying to learn from all the coaches, even from coaches with junior teams. One day, I am there, watching a game - and there's something I can learn! When I was young, at the beginning of my career, Aito [Garcia Reneses] was the coach in Barcelona, so in that period, Aito was my idol and I wanted to be like him," Pascual said.
"After every game, I try to realize what I did well, what I did wrong, what we can improve."
He said that his early mentors were coaches in Gava. Antoni Mercader taught him to love basketball and Agustin Cuesta taught him about discipline and details and how to work on those details every day. This is critical for Coach Pascual: the attention to detail that gives you an advantage required on a certain play to either get an easier basket or stop your opponent. Working for Ivanovic was also important for Pascual.
"I think Ivanovic is one of the best coaches in the history of this competition and I learned a lot from him in all areas," Pascual said. Once he reached the elite level, Pascual knew he couldn't settle. "I try to be open. I try to be always in the moment. I am trying to improve from every single game that I watch on TV. After every game, I try to realize what I did well, what I did wrong, what we can improve or what we have to continue. I am trying to improve my basketball every day."
Pascual recalled a conversation he had with Cuesta that inspired him to become a head coach: "I was his assistant and we were talking about the next year and he said to me: 'no, you will not be my assistant.' I said 'why? why? what did I do wrong?'. He said: 'you didn't do anything wrong, but you are ready to be a head coach and I don't want to make you lose your time, so you have to be a head coach.'
"It was the moment that he pushed me to be a head coach. And from that moment, I started to build my career step by step, competition by competition, growing up."
Pascual referred to three influences at the highest level, though he added that it's not fair to stick with so few names. "I remember different moments in my basketball life, let's say when I was following [Ettore] Messina like crazy, when I was following Dusko [Ivanovic], when I was following Zeljko [Obradovic]... Aito, as I said before... I think when you follow the EuroLeague, all the coaches are at the highest level in Europe and you can improve some details from all of them, so it is difficult to say only some names because it would not be fair."
Several of Pascual's former assistants have followed in his footsteps. Oriol Pages, Chema Berrocal and Agusti Julbe were the first names of former assistants who became head coaches that came to mind for Pascual.
"I think when you follow the EuroLeague, all the coaches are at the highest level in Europe and you can improve some details from all of them."
“I've also had a lot of players who became head coaches, so this makes me very happy. Like Joan Peñarroya, Jaka Lakovic, Victor Sada, Roger Grimau, Sarunas Jasikevicius..." Pascual said.
Jasikevicius is now coaching Barcelona, while Lakovic (ratiopharm Ulm) and Peñarroya (Valencia Basket) are in the 7DAYS EuroCup. Pascual coached Peñarroya in the Spanish second division squad with Aracena in the 2003-04 season. Sada and Grimau are coaching youth teams in Barcelona and another former player, Boni Ndong, is the Senegalese national team's head coach and works for Denver of the NBA.
"I am very happy that he always said that part of his basketball is coming from me," Pascual said of Jasikevicius. "It makes me happy. It makes me feel honored. Now, as I said the previous season, I think he will be the coach who will be dominating this competition in the next years. He knows that I wish always the best for him. He has quality, he has talent, he has experience, so all the future is in front of him."
"For sure, I am using things that one day, another coach thought of before me."
Pascual said he believes that some of his players could stay in basketball and run teams in the future. Some of them have it in their genes, like Billy Baron, Sergey Karasev and Conner Frankamp, whose fathers were coaches. Jordan Mickey's father also played basketball. The first name he gave us, however, was not one of those.
"Shabazz [Napier], I think, he can be a coach. Also, Billy Baron and Sergey Karasev; they came from families of coaches and they have this knowledge inside and they probably can be. You never know what... also Conner is in the same situation, also Jordan Mickey is in the same situation, so you never know what is going to happen. But a lot of them, I think, can be coaches in the future and I hope that, during the season, they will learn something that, one day, they will show their players in the future."
In modern basketball, trying to innovate is complicated and this is why coaches get ideas from one another. "Every season, I am using different things and some of them came from other coaches. Also, I am very happy when I see some adjustments and some plays that other coaches are using from me," he admitted. "The EuroLeague is very rich in this and all the coaches, we are taking things from other coaches and this makes this competition amazing because nobody is afraid to do it and nobody feels shame to do it.
"For sure, I am using things that one day, another coach thought of before me," he said. "We are learning and we are using whatever we think can help us win."