The Czech Republic have announced that Israeli tactician Ronen Ginzburg will be their head coach as he attempts to steer them to Eurobasket 2015 via the qualifiers.
The 50-year-old is also the first foreigner to ever coach the Czech Republic. He was the coach of the domestic champions CEZ Nymburk until he left last summer to work as a commentator on Israeli TV.
His last moment as coach of Nymburk was leading them to the Czech title, as they completed a double-winning season.
“The CBF has decided to hire a full-time coach,” Czech Basketball Federation President Miroslav Jansta said in a statement.
“There is still more than three quarters of the year left until the qualifying games for the Eurobasket but we can already announce that the coach who will try to lead the team to a second participation in a row is Ronen Ginzburg.”
The veteran coach takes over from Pavel Budinsky, who suggested to the Federation that the national team needs a full-time coach in order to progress further.
Budinsky is currently head coach at Czech NBL side BK Decin.
“We appreciate the work that he [Bundinsky] did during four years as the head coach of the national team, he took the team from Division B into the EuroBasket,” Jansta said.
“But Pavel Budinsky is currently contractually bound by BK Decin and now it’s time to change the overall structure of the national team.”
