Our goal is the European Championship. We are here to qualify and for Montenegro as a basketball country to go to the European Championship. We are going game by game. We will have to do our best to reach the championship.
With these words, last February, the coach of the Montenegrin national basketball team, Boško Radović, announced the qualifications for the upcoming Eurobasket, which our team played in a group with Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria. A year later, the goal was achieved. Montenegro will participate in the continental competition for the fifth time in history, and the third in a row - a huge success, a great result and continuity of participation in major competitions.
The EuroBasket qualification was the reason for an interview with the coach. In an interview for "Vijesti", Radović talked about the qualifications and the upcoming championship, the generational change, the younger teams, but also about who he waved his ticket to the EuroBasket after the match with the Swedes and why.
"We gave our all. This is the toughest qualifying 'window' since I've been a coach. It's never been more uncertain and difficult to get to EuroBasket. The 'windows' were demanding, until the last round it was not known who would advance, all the teams were in the game. That's why I like and appreciate how it all ended. Counting all the championships - when I was an assistant and when I was a coach, this is my favorite time to go to the championship," Radović told "Vijesti".
The team was not complete in the last qualifying round either. Bojan Dubljević, Marko Todorović and Igor Drobnjak were missing, the injured Čarlij Mura was absent, Nikola Ivanović played only against Sweden, and Vladimir Mihailović, Marko Simonović and Luka Bogavac, who broke his nose against Germany, missed that match. And then Andrija Slavković also injured his hand in Stockholm. Slavković, along with Zoran Nikolić, Dino Radončić and Nemanja Radović, played every match in the qualifiers.
"Against Germany we had no playmakers. In Sweden we were without Simonović, Mihailović and Bogavac, who broke his nose against the Germans. Slavković was also injured at half-time in Sweden. We wish them a speedy recovery and return to the field."
Montenegro defeated Bulgaria twice and Sweden once in the qualifiers.
"We defeated our direct opponents by a large margin. We won all the games we needed to win. We completed the qualifiers in a disciplined and well-organized manner and achieved our goal," said the coach.
THERE ARE FEWER PLAYERS FOR THE A TEAM
A special challenge before the last two matches was forming the team.
"We are used to not being complete. Compare my extended list from five and a half years ago and this latest one, the difference is in the deficit of players who can be on the list. The Federation and the clubs will have to deal with this. The number of players who can compete for the national team has been reduced, which means that something is not right in the system," warns Radović.
It's still early to talk about the EuroBasket roster.
"We have basketball players who are in their playing years and who rarely miss major competitions. As the years go by, it is quite a strain for them, because most of them have long seasons. The team will be made up of experienced and younger players, who should be the backbone of the national team in the coming years. We will have a clearer picture of that at the end of the season."
IF VUČEVIĆ IS HEALTHY, HE'LL BE AT THE EURO
As things stand now, Nikola Vućević will play at Eurobasket.
"Nikola called me 15 minutes after the match with Sweden and congratulated me. If he's healthy and everything goes well, he'll be at the European Championship. After the Olympic tournament last summer, he told me he was ready for the EuroBasket if he qualified. He always gave his best in the national team, he's a player of exceptional quality."
The question is which of the foreigners will be in the squad. Kendrick Perry left a deep mark on the national team, and in the last "window" after almost three years, John Radebau was there.
"Radebau came, did a great job and I thank him for that. Our biggest need is for a player in the number one position. As for naturalization - we have several options, but nothing has been defined yet."
The draw for EuroBasket is on March 27 in Riga. The championship is from August 27 to September 14 in Latvia, Poland, Finland and Cyprus.
"We need to see where we will play. I can't talk about the goal, because we need to see what lineup we will be in and what group we will be in. Every team comes with the desire to play their best. We will try to be next in that group."
After the EuroBasket, the WorldBasketball qualifiers follow. A generational change is inevitable, but the coach says that none of the seeded teams have announced their withdrawal.
"Guys who are in their mature playing years should not be written off, none of them said they wouldn't, nor did I think of writing them off. They are still playing at a high level. We have the example of Blagota Sekulić, who ended his career at the age of 37," says Radović.
I WOULD BE AN HONOR TO REMAIN THE COACH.
Radović's contract expires after the EuroBasket. He is the first to lead the national team in three major competitions, and before taking on the role of coach, he was on the coaching staff of Duško Vujošević, Dejan Radonjić, Bogdan Tanjević and Zvezdan Mitrović.
"I have never lacked motivation, desire and will to be a national team coach in Montenegro. There have been great challenges all these years. It will be a challenge to achieve results with the younger guys. It would be an honor, I do not shy away from challenges to continue where I am now."
At the press conference after the match with Sweden, the coach dedicated part of his speech to, as he said, "quasi-experts, they will recognize themselves, who know better than the team and the coaching staff", so he "waved a ticket to Eurobasket to them". Now he explained what he meant, but not who specifically he had in mind when he did that.
"I have to protect the players and the coaching staff, enough of putting question marks over them. A certain part of the public, both lay and professional, would be absolutely satisfied if we didn't go to the championship. But we have to disappoint them because we are at Eurobasket again. By waving that card, I wasn't waving it for myself, but to protect first the players, then my coaching staff, who are constantly being targeted."
Radović reiterated that qualifying for EuroBasket is a great result.
"We need to stop putting question marks on whether it's good that we qualified for the European Championship or not. Is it good that we were 11th in the world? It's not good, it's great, the best! There are a large number of real, sincere fans who recognize the problems we face and appreciate what we do, and I thank them for that. I would also like to thank the others, who are constantly asking questions," the coach is clear.
He also looked back at the coaching staff.
"All the guys who come are here out of pure love. The coaching staff are volunteers. I'm the only one who receives a salary. When we talk about material things, these are all people who live off of it. It can't always be like 'I'm honored to be here'. For example, Vlado Todorović, who is an assistant coach at Buducnost, can choose at the moment. There are few teams where he wouldn't be able to do what he does. We have to appreciate and respect that," Radović explained.
LITTLE IS HAPPENING SYSTEMICALLY
Part of the interview was dedicated to the future of Montenegrin basketball, namely the younger teams. The conversation was introduced by a reminder of the two medals won by the cadet and youth teams.
"Since gaining independence, we have had a continuous performance of U16, U18 and U20 teams at the European Championships, mainly in the A division. We had two medals - silver cadet and bronze youth national team. The cadet is the mastery of our respected colleague Mladen Ostojić, and the other is the great knowledge and excellent leadership of Dušan Dubljević. I think that four of the cadet national team are involved in basketball, which is alarming - Jovan Kljajić in Gran Canaria, Viktor Vujisić in Teodo, Bojan Tomašević in FMP and Marko Kljajević in Zlatibor," Radović points out.
The cadets won the aforementioned medal in 2017, and the young national team members won the bronze medal in 2022.
"The youth team is not part of the system. The guys were in Europe. I don't know if Andrija Grbović, who was in Ulm, had three or four months of continuity playing in the youth teams at that moment. Luka Bogavac was in France, then in Mega, Filip Andjušić was moving from junior to senior, Đorđije Jovanović in Partizan, then he went to the USA. Fedor Žugić was the only one in the big systems at that moment."
These guys should be the backbone of the national team in the coming years.
"Four or five players from the bronze generation will be in the national team. We have the talented David Mirković. There is Igor Drobnjak, who has been in the team for years, has been in major competitions. Kljajić and Žugić should play for the national team for another ten years."
When it comes to the younger teams, the previous summer was unsuccessful. The young team lost all seven matches and was relegated to the B division, which includes cadets and juniors.
"Not much is happening systematically. As for the younger teams, last summer was unsuccessful. The U16 and U18 teams had no chance of entering the A division, the younger team was relegated to B. I didn't see that we were close to skipping that level and entering the A division. I didn't clearly see anyone who would dominate, who we would say could be a player for teams from the ABA and ABA2 leagues. Here, it's easiest to blame everything on the younger team selectors, who only deal with these players for a month and a half," Radović is honest.
Clubs also have an important role to play. That was also discussed.
"For years, we had a lot of players from Buducnost in the younger teams, so they joined from other clubs and it was easier to work. I will present one, for me, striking fact. I think that last summer there were no players from Nikšić in the cadet, junior and youth national teams. There were three of them in all the teams, that's funny, the point is clear. This is a fact that we should all put our finger on. Nikšić was a serious base in Montenegrin basketball. This is alarming, all the alarms went off," warns the coach.
Clubs and the Federation must work together.
"The clubs must return, Lovćen, Sutjeska, Jedinstvo must return... According to the new law, all are clubs. But, they are all clubs, and all those who were re-registered as clubs have continued to work as basketball schools. The system is a basketball school. Clubs, with the help of the system, the state, the Federation, must return to work with younger teams, because we are in trouble. Every following year will be a bigger problem, not to mention some ugly scenario," warns Radović.
WE WERE 11TH IN THE WORLD, SO IT WAS LIKE WE DROPPED AN ATOMIC BOMB ON BASKETBALL
Sport is ideal for promoting Montenegro, so Radović also addressed the state's attitude towards popularizing basketball. After all, for the national team to have a future, basketball must be popularized among the youngest. And everyone must work on that.
"It was like we dropped an atomic bomb on Montenegrin basketball, being ranked 11th in the world. Nothing happened after that, there were no more kids, there was no marketing follow-up."
He compared how Montenegro's placement in the upcoming EuroBasket was handled with that in Georgia.
"Georgia qualified for the European Championship, they received the Order of Honor. Do you know how many awards they received in Georgia? They have a serious squad, but I think we are years ahead of them. When they qualify for a major competition, it's a national holiday. Who asks how - was it a defeat or a half-point victory. We need to change our mindset a little," concluded the coach.
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