Vlado Ilievski

Vlado Ilievski
Player information
birthday	January 19, 1980
place of birth	Strumica, SFR Yugoslavia
size	188 cm
position	Point guard
Club information
society	ČEZ Nymburk
league	NBL Czech Republic / VTB-UL
Clubs as active
1995–1997 KK Nemetali Strumica 1998–2000 KK Partizan Belgrade 2000–2001 Antbirlik Antalya 2001–2003 KK Union Olimpija 2003–2005 FC Barcelona 2005–2006 Lottomatica Rome 2006–2007 VidiVici Bologna 2007–2008 Montepaschi Siena 2008 KK Union Olimpija Ljubljana 2008– 2009 TAU Ceramica 2009–2011 KK Union Olimpija Ljubljana 2011 Anadolu Efes SK 2012 Locomotive Kuban Krasnodar 2012–2013 KK Cedevita Since 2013 ČEZ Nymburk 00000 00000 00000 0
National team
Since 01999	Macedonia

Vlado Ilievski ( Macedonian Владо Илиевски ; born January 19, 1980 in Strumica , SR Macedonia ) is a Macedonian basketball player . After Ilievski began his professional career at KK Partizan in Belgrade , he won the national championships once at his stations in Slovenia , Spain and Italy . After further stints in Turkey , Russia and Croatia , he has been playing in the Czech Republic for the local series champion ČEZ Nymburk since the 2013/14 season .

National competitions

Ilievski played his first senior championship games in the 1995/96 season at his home club KK Nemetali in his hometown. In 1997/98 he spent a year in the United States at a high school . After a year he returned and played for the Serbian series champion KK Partizan Belgrade. At the time of Ilievski, however, the Montenegrin team from KK Budućnost Podgorica won the national championship of Serbia and Montenegro three times in a row between 1999 and 2001 . In 2000, KK Partizan had to be satisfied with the runner-up in the play-off final series, but they were able to successfully defend their 1999 cup victory. From December 2000 Ilievski played for the Turkish club Antbirlik from Antalya . The promoted to the top national division Türkiye Basketbol Ligi rose again at the end of the season as the penultimate one.

From 2001 on Ilievski played for two seasons for the first time at KK Union Olimpija in Ljubljana. The dominant Slovenian basketball club won the national double from the championship and the cup in Ilievski's first season in 2002 . In 2003 they lost the final series of the Slovenian championship in five games against KK Krka from Novo mesto and had to be content with winning the cup. Ilievski switched to the Spanish triple winner FC Barcelona, ​​with whom he defended the Spanish championship under coach Svetislav Pešić in 2004 and won the Spanish Supercup, which was played for the first time. In the 2004/05 season, the defending champion failed in the first play-off round of the Spanish championship.

In the 2005/06 season coach Pešić Ilievski brought in the Italian Lega Basket Serie A for Lottomatica in Rome . They reached the Italian Cup final, which was just lost by two points against Basket Napoli , and eliminated in the semifinals of the national championship against the eventual champions Pallacanestro Treviso . In the following season, he moved to Virtus in Bologna at the end of December , which competed under the sponsor name VidiVici . Again Ilievski had to accept a defeat with two points this time against Treviso in the Italian Cup final, in the final series of the championship they were clearly defeated in three games Mens Sana Basket from Siena , which signed him for the following season. Ilievski defended the Italian championship title with only one defeat in the play-offs in the final series against his ex-club from Rome with the club from Tuscany , which was competing under the sponsor name Montepaschi .

For the 2008/09 season Ilievski returned to KK Union Olimpija, but moved back to the Spanish ACB league for the Basque club TAU Ceramica in Vitoria-Gasteiz in December 2008 . With the Basques he won the Copa del Rey cup competition and reached the final series of the Spanish championship, which was lost to his ex-club from Barcelona , Catalonia . He then returned to KK Union Olimpija, who lost the final series of the Slovenian championship against KK Krka in 2010 and 2011 for the first time since 2003, each in just under five games. In the Slovenian cup competition, however, they were twice victorious. For the 2011/12 season Ilievski moved back to Turkey and played for Anadolu Efes SK in Istanbul , where he followed in the footsteps of his Macedonian compatriot Petar Naumoski , who had played very successfully for this club in the 90s. After Ilievski could not fully meet expectations, they separated at the beginning of 2012 and he switched to the Russian association Lokomotive Kuban from Krasnodar.

For the 2012/13 season, Ilievski switched to Croatian runner-up and cup winner KK Cedevita from Zagreb , who is also a finalist of the Adriatic League in the ULEB Euroleague 2012/13 . There they were eliminated after the preliminary round and after losing the cup final as defending champion they were eliminated in the championship this time in the semifinals. In the 2013/14 season Ilievski got until after the season starts a new contract and mid-November, joined the Czech series champion CEZ Basketball from Nymburk to the next national championship and VTB United League in the 2013-14 Eurocup Basketball compete.

European Cup competitions

With the exception of the 2005/06 season at Lottomatica Rome, Ilievski played in every season for at least one club in the top European division ULEB Euroleague from 2001 onwards . He also played with KK Partizan in the only 2000/01 season of the Suproleague . With Union Olimpija he reached the second round of the sixteen best teams except for the early elimination in the group stage in the 2008/09 season , where he previously moved to TAU Ceramica in Spain, and in the following 2009/10 season . With defending champion FC Barcelona in 2004 and in the following season in 2005 he suffered the same fate with the failure in the round of 16. In the 2011/12 season he reached the group stage of the last 16 teams with Anadolu Efes SK, but then switched to Kuban locomotives that competed in the ULEB Eurocup .

With Lottomatica Rome he was eliminated in the ULEB Cup 2005/06 in the quarter-finals. With this club he would have qualified for the round of the best sixteen teams in the Euroleague in 2006/07 . By moving to Virtus Bologna in December 2006, he achieved third place in the 2007 EuroChallenge , which his ex-trainer Svetislav Pešić won with Akasvayu Girona . In the ULEB Euroleague 2007/08 , he and Montepaschi Siena reached the Final Four tournament in Madrid in 2008 for the first time , where they won the game for third place against TAU ​​Ceramica. In the following season he reached with the Basque club, to which he moved in December 2008, again the quarter-finals, in which one was eliminated against his former club and later title holder FC Barcelona.

National team

When Petar Naumoski was still playing, Ilievski took part in the 1999 European Championship finals with the Macedonian national team at the age of 19 . In this final round you were eliminated with three defeats in the preliminary round. It wasn't until ten years later that the qualification for a final was again achieved, but Ilievski was unable to participate in the 2009 European Championship in Poland due to an injury. Two years later they were again qualified and, led by the naturalized Bo McCalebb, despite an opening defeat in extra time against the Montenegrin national basketball team , they pushed through to the final round after six consecutive wins, where they defeated hosts Lithuania in the quarter-finals of the EM 2011 . When they were behind at the score of 63 to 65, Ilievski hit a three-point throw in the last seconds of the game and a free throw in the final second , which meant the last four points of the game and the victory and greatest success for the blatant underdog. This victory also secured the Macedonians participation in the pre-Olympic qualification tournament in 2012 . In the game for the bronze medal you lost to the Russian team . At the Olympic qualifying tournament in Caracas 2012, the Dominican Republic lost in the quarter-finals and thus missed the actual Olympic tournament . A year later, after only one win at the 2013 European Championship finals , they were eliminated in the preliminary round.

Web links

• archive.fiba.com: Players - Vlado ILIEVSKI (MKD) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments ( English )
• ILIEVSKI, VLADO - player profile on the websites of the ULEB Euroleague (English)
• ACB: Vlado Ilievski - player profile on the pages of the league ACB ( Spanish )
• Legabasket: Vlado Ilievski - player profile on the statistics pages of Serie A ( Italian )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vlado Ilievski - Turkish Basketball League Player. TBLStat.net, accessed on September 14, 2011 (English, player statistics). 
2. ↑ CEZ NYMBURK adds veteran guard Ilievski. (No longer available online.) ULEB , November 12, 2013, archived from the original on November 12, 2013 ; accessed on November 12, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ FYR of Macedonia Shatter Home Dreams. FIBA Europe : eurobasket2011.com, September 14, 2011, accessed on September 17, 2011 (English, match report).