A coach skilled in defense: Who is Zvezdan Mitrovic?
Coach Mitrovic, who worked at AS Monaco and won the EuroCup championship, finished the French League regular season as leader in his first season in Monaco, after his 12-year career in Ukraine. The most important moments in his personal history are when he led his country team to the World Cup and won the EuroCup.
Born in Montenegro on February 19, 1970, Mitrović started his career as an assistant coach at his country's team, Buducnost, and had his first head coaching experience with Ukraine's Khimki Yuzny team in the 2002/03 season. After his 5-year career with Khimki Yuzny, he coached Krivbasbasket-Lux Krivyi Rog, Budivelnyk Kviv, Khimik-OPZ Yuzny, Azovmash Mariupol teams in his Ukrainian career, which lasted 12 years in total. He was awarded the Coach of the Year award in 2009 when he also won the Ukrainian Super League championship. He added a Ukrainian Cup championship to his Ukrainian career in 2012.
Mitrović, who took over the French representative Monaco in the lower league in 2014-15, took the team to the upper class by becoming champion in his first year. Zvezdan Mitrović, who created a competitive team in Monaco, also started to make a name for himself on the European stage.
Zvezdan Mitrović (born 19 February 1970) is a Montenegrin professional basketball coach, who is currently the head coach for Galatasaray Nef of the Turkish Basketbol Süper Ligi (BSL).
While he was the French ProA League Regular Season leader three times, and the French Leaders Cup champion three times, in the French League with AS Monaco in 2016, 2017, and 2018, he was selected as the coach of the year for three consecutive seasons. He took Monaco to the Basketball Champions League Final Four twice in a row in 2017 and 2018.
At the beginning of the 2018/19 season, he switched to ASVEL, another important team in France. He had the chance to take part in the EuroLeague stage with ASVEL, which he coached for two consecutive seasons. In 2020, he reached the French Leaders Cup final and was once again selected as the coach of the year in France in the same season.
The experienced basketball man, who signed an agreement with AS Monaco again in the 2020/21 season after his ASVEL adventure, led his team to the EuroCup championship in the first year of his return, and Monaco thus got the EuroLeague ticket for the first time in its history.
While Zvezdan Mitrović continued his career in France, he also managed to compete in the 2019 World Cup with his country's national team, Montenegro, between 2017 and 2019.
Having parted ways with Andreas Pistiolis in the Turkish Insurance Basketball Super League, Galatasaray appointed Zvezdan Mitrovic as head coach in 2023.