BARCELONA, 23 MAR. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The former national team manager and former coach of Barça or Joventut, Aíto García Reneses, stated that the bench is still his place, despite taking a sabbatical year, and he will continue to be a coach until the day he “dies”.
“I was born a coach and until I die I must continue like this. I have evolved in everything. As a coach, I see myself every day and I am evolving without realizing it. You take advantage of everything you have and everything you see,” Aíto admitted in statements to the DAZN’s ‘The Coaching Experience’ space collected by Europa Press.
The 75-year-old from Madrid is one of the most successful coaches in the history of Spanish basketball and led the team in one of the most important FIBA basketball matches, the Spain-United States match in the final of the Beijing Olympics .
“Coaching that group was great. The players wanted to have a little more fun in the national team, not train and work. However, we managed to work a lot the month before the Olympics. Some said: ‘We have improved more in this month than in all the previous year in our teams'”, recalled Aíto about the months prior to the Olympic event.
The former coach is the fourth Spanish coach with nine ACB League titles won with Barça, where he managed players like Pau Gasol or Juan Carlos Navarro when they were beginning to stand out.
“Gasol, the year he had already played with the first team, we had really taken him out of the ‘linked’ (lower category team so that young players have more minutes). He did not train a single day with them, nor much less did he get to play because he took advantage of it very well,” said Aíto, whose last experience on the bench was with the German side ALBA Berlin.
Then came the time of the titles for the Barça team with him on the bench: “It can be said that at that time we won everything except the European Cup. However, we went from practically not winning a League in forty years to winning them all” , he added.
Regarding the basketball that can be seen today in Europe, Aíto gave his opinion on the point guard position and the low post position, where there are some players who “play point guard and think little”, and others who “play pivot and think a lot “.
“Improving intellectually helps to be a better player and, furthermore, it lasts a lifetime,” explained the coach, who was key in the formation of Gasol or Navarro.