Pini Gershon

Pini Gershon
Player information
Full name	Phinehas Gershon
birthday	November 13, 1951
place of birth	Tel Aviv, Israel
Clubs as active
1970–1974 Maccabi Darom Tel Aviv
Clubs as coaches
Club teams: 1974–1976 Beitar Tel Aviv (youth) 1976–1977 Beitar Tel Aviv 1977–1979 Hapoel Holon 1980–1981 Hapoel Gan Shmuel 1981–1983 Hapoel Galil Elyon 1983–1985 Maccabi Haifa 1985–1986 Hapoel Tel Aviv 1986–1987 Maccabi Haifa 1987-1988 Beitar Tel Aviv 1988-1989 Maccabi Haifa 1989-1990 Hapoel Haifa 1990-1992 Ironi Ramat Gan 1992-1993 Hapoel Galil Elyon 1993-1994 Maccabi Rishon Lezion 1994-1995 Hapoel Galil Elyon 1995-1997 Hapoel Jerusalem 1997-1998 Maccabi Rishon LeZion 1998–2006 Maccabi Tel Aviv 2006–2008 Olympiacos Piraeus 2008–2010 Maccabi Tel Aviv
National team as coach
2007-2010 Bulgaria
1 As of August 10, 2010

Pinhas "Pini" Gershon (born November 13, 1951 in Tel Aviv , Israel ) is an Israeli basketball coach . Most recently, he was the coach of the Israeli series champions Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Bulgarian national team until 2010 . Due to his numerous national and international successes, he is one of the most successful basketball coaches in Europe.

Basketball player

At the age of 19, Gershon began playing for Maccabi Darom Tel Aviv, the sister team of Maccabi Tel Aviv . He was considered a promising talent and quickly became a star on the reserve team. After a short time he made the leap to the professional team of Maccabi Darom. In 1974, however, he had to end his career due to a serious injury.

Basketball coach

After his short career as a player, he began working as a basketball coach. He held a coaching position at Maccabi Rishon Lezion, Hapoel Galil Elyon, Hapoel Gan Shmuel, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem.

In 1993 he achieved a feat that is rare in Israeli basketball: he ousted Maccabi Tel Aviv from the basketball throne and became the Israeli basketball champion with Hapoel Galil Elyon. Since the 1968/1969 season, no team succeeded in replacing Maccabi Tel Aviv as long-term champions.

In 1996 he led the Hapoel Jerusalem team to win the trophy. Last but not least, Gershon's decisions in the final against Maccabi Tel Aviv led to the acclaimed victory.

After these successes, Maccabi Tel Aviv became aware of Gershon and hired him. Up to his first foreign engagement at Olympiacos Piraeus 8 years passed, during which Gershon celebrated great successes with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He not only won the national championship every season, but was also able to win the highest European competition, the Euroleague , in 2001, 2004 and 2005 . Before that, in 2001 he won the one-time competition, the Suproleague .

On June 29, 2006 Gershon signed a contract with the Greek club Olympiacos Piraeus . Gershon has not been able to celebrate major successes with Olympiakos and so he was sacked in February 2008 after a bad preliminary round .

During his tenure in Greece, he took the position of Bulgarian national coach. He sensationally led the Bulgarian national team into the preliminary round of the Eurobasket 2009 .

In December 2008, Pini Gershon returned to the club with which he had the most success - Maccabi Tel Aviv. He replaced the unsuccessful Effi Birenboim as coach. Gershon could not meet the high expectations, so he was replaced after a successful 2009/2010 season by his former assistant at Galil Elyon and Maccabi Tel Aviv, the American-Israeli coach David Blatt .

successes

• European titles: 2001 ( Suproleague ), 2004 Euroleague and 2005 Euroleague
• Israeli championship: 1991 (with Hapoel Galil Elyon), 1998-2006, 2009 (with Maccabi Tel Aviv)
• Israeli Cup: 1996 (with Hapoel Jerusalem), 1998–2006 (with Maccabi Tel Aviv)

Web links

Commons : Pini Gershon  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files