Rado Trifunović is Slovenia’s eleventh basketball coach, his predecessors are: Zmago Sagadin, Janez Drvarič, Andrej Urlep, Boris Zrinski, Slobodan Subotić, Aleš Pipan, Jure Zdovc, Memi Bečirović, Božidar Maljković and Igor Kokoškov. Photo: www.alesfevzer.com Foto:
Rado Trifunović is Slovenia’s eleventh basketball coach, his predecessors are: Zmago Sagadin, Janez Drvarič, Andrej Urlep, Boris Zrinski, Slobodan Subotić, Aleš Pipan, Jure Zdovc, Memi Bečirović, Božidar Maljković and Igor Kokoškov. Photo: www.alesfevzer.com Foto:

Slovenia’s tenth head coach and second foreigner Igor Kokoškov had led the team to the greatest success in the history of Slovenian sports. During his two years at the helm of the team, Kokoškov had the support of three assistant coaches: Rado Trifunović, Jaka Lakovič and Aleksander Sekulić. After FIBA’s decision to change the qualifications, it became clear the Serbian-born expert cannot keep his role of Slovenia’s head coach due to his obligations in the NBA League. Therefore, it has been speculated that one of his assistants would likely be chosen as his successor, with Trifunović becoming the most frequently mentioned candidate during EuroBasket.

“The only candidates were his three assistants. We’ve decided it’s time for Trifunović to shine. He assisted the last two head coaches and he’s gained quite some experience. It would be absurd to search for someone new, with a different philosophy and vision. I think it’s of key importance before qualifications that players can come and know what to expect. There will be no need to set up a new system,” explained secretary general of the Slovenian Basketball Association Rašo Nesterović regarding the choice of Trifunović as the new head coach.

Due to excellent results of this predecessor, Trifunović is well aware that he has big shoes to fill: “Of course it’s hard to succeed Igor since he achieved so much. It is not and won’t be easy, but I’m very proud to be in this role now. We want to play a similar style of basketball, which is really good, fun to watch and successful. We’ll keep Igor’s system that suited the players. We want to play good defence and fast attacks.”

Slovenia will play its first match in the qualifications for the 2019 world championship on 24 November in Ljubljana against Belarus and two days later against Spain in Madrid. The group also includes Montenegro. The best three teams will advance into the next round and play against the first three from a group that consists of Sweden, Turkey, Latvia and Ukraine. The top three teams will qualify for the world championship in China in 2019.