Aleksandar Petrović (basketball player)

Aleksandar Petrovic
Player information
Nickname	Aca trica
birthday	February 16, 1959 (61 years and 197 days)
place of birth	Šibenik, SFR Yugoslavia
size	193 cm
position	Point guard
Clubs as active
1979–1987 Cibona Zagreb 1987–1988 Scavolini Pesaro 1988–1989 Cibona Zagreb 1989–1990 OKK Novi Zagreb
National team
	Yugoslavia
Clubs as coaches
1991–1995 Cibona Zagreb 1995 Croatia 1995–1997 Caja San Fernando Sevilla 1997–1998 Cibona Zagreb 1999–2001 Croatia 2001–2002 Anwil Włocławek 2003–2004 Caprabo Lleida 2006 Carifac Fabriano 2006 Eurorida Scafati 2007–2008 KK Zadar 2010–2011 Cedevita Zagreb Since 2012 Bosnia-Herzegovina Since 2012 KK Cedevita 00000000 000 00000 00000 0000 0

Aleksandar Petrović (basketball player) medal table
Basketball (men)
SFR Yugoslavia
Olympic games
bronze	1984 Los Angeles
World championships
bronze	1982 Colombia
bronze	1986 Spain
European Championship
bronze	1987 Athens

Aleksandar Petrović (basketball player) medal table
Basketball (men)
Croatia
European Championship
bronze	1995 Athens	as a trainer

Aleksandar "Aca" Petrović (born February 16, 1959 in Šibenik , SR Croatia ) is a Croatian basketball coach and former Yugoslav player. Petrović, older brother of Dražen Petrović , who is particularly revered in his homeland , won the European Cup twice with KK Cibona from Zagreb and bronze with the Yugoslav national team at the 1984 Olympics and at the 1982 and 1986 World Championships . As a coach, Petrović again won a bronze medal with the Croatian national team at the 1995 European Championship and was named coach of the year in the second most important European club competition, the Eurocup 2010/11 . Since the beginning of 2012 he has been the head coach of the selection of Bosnia-Herzegovina .

Player career

Petrović played in his active time at KK Cibona Zagreb still together with Krešimir Ćosić , with whom he was Yugoslav champions for the first time in the club's history in 1982. At the same time they won the Yugoslav Cup again like the two years before and made the triple perfect by winning the European Cup Winners' Cup . While Cibona defended the Yugoslav Cup in 1983 and won it for the fourth time in a row, it wasn't until 1984 that they were again Yugoslav champions. 1982 and 1984 Petrović was also with the Yugoslav national team bronze medalist at the respective World Championships and Olympic Games. In 1985 his brother Dražen came to Cibona and they got a triple, this time in connection with the European Cup after a final victory in Athens . The two brothers were able to repeat their title success in the European Cup with Cibona in 1986 alongside another national cup title and at the 1986 World Cup they jointly won the bronze medal for Yugoslavia. In 1987, after winning another title in the European Cup Winners' Cup with Cibona, together with the national team, they won a bronze medal in Athens after losing to the hosts and defending champions Greece in the semifinals .

The two brothers subsequently left Cibona and the club had to surrender its leading role not only in Yugoslavia, but also in Croatia itself to the up-and-coming club KK Split , which from 1989 even won the European championship three times in a row and the Yugoslav championship four times won. In 1987 Aleksandar first went to the defeated final opponent in the European Cup and won the Italian championship with Scavolini from Pesaro in 1988 . While Dražen went to Spain for Real Madrid , Aleksandar returned to Cibona in 1988. A year later he moved to local rivals and first division promoted Novi Zagreb .

Coaching career

In the 1991/92 season, Petrović was back at Cibona, this time as a coach. With the club he was Croatian champion four times in a row from 1992 to 1995, while the wars of independence were raging in Yugoslavia . In 1995 he was also the coach of the national team and won another bronze medal at the European Championship finals in Athens, where he had already won his first national championship and his last national team medal as a player, after the national team around Toni Kukoč , Dino Rađa , Arijan Komazec and Stojan Vranković were the only team to have beaten Lithuania in the semi-finals. After two years with the Spanish basketball club from Seville , he returned to Cibona in 1997 and was again Croatian champion in 1998. He then worked again as the coach of the Croatian national team, which had not qualified for the 2000 Olympic Games . At the 2001 European Championship finals , the host and later silver medalist Turkey were eliminated in the quarter-finals from the medal award and finally failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup with seventh place .

In December 2001 Petrović was coach of the Polish club Anwil Włocławek, but he left after the end of the season. The same thing happened at the Spanish club from Lleida two years later. For only a few months he was a coach in 2006, initially for the Italian second division team Fabriano Basket in the first half of the year and the first division promoted Scafati Basket in the second half of the year. In March 2007 he took over KK Zadar, one of the most traditional Croatian clubs, where many important players in the senior sector had started with Krešimir Ćosić, Stojan Vranković, Arijan Komazec and the Serb Dejan Bodiroga . After winning the cup in 2007, he won the Croatian championship with Zadar in 2008, only for the second time in the club's history. In December 2008 they parted ways and Petrović only took over a team again in April 2010. At KK Cedevita, founded in 1991, he reached first place in regular time in the 2010/11 season, but missed the championship due to a series of defeats in the play-off final against KK Zagreb , formerly Novi Zagreb. In the Eurocup 2010/11 they reached the Final Four tournament somewhat surprisingly . After a semi-final defeat against eventual winner UNICS Kazan , they won third place in the small final against hosts Benetton Treviso . Petrović was named Coach of the Year in the 2010/11 Eurocup.

At the beginning of 2012, Petrović took over the reins of the Bosnia-Herzegovina national team . At the end of the year he succeeded Božidar Maljković , who had suddenly resigned, as coach of KK Cedevita, which he had already coached until 2011.

Web links

Commons : Aleksandar Petrović  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Petrovic, Aleksandar - Coach profile on the website of the ULEB (English)
• Players - Aleksandar Petrovic (YUG). archive.fiba.com - Overview of participations as a player in FIBA tournaments (English, note: EM 1987 missing)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} 2010-11 Eurocup Coach of the Year: Aleksandar Petrovic, Cedevita Zagreb. ULEB , April 5, 2011, accessed February 2, 2012 . 
2. ^ NN: Cedevita Zagreb brings back Aco Petrovic to the bench. ( Memento of February 21, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Archived from the EuroLeague website; Barcelona, ​​November 26, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2019.