Roger Grimau has been the new Barça basketball coach since Monday, replacing Sarunas Jasikevicius. The Catalan, captain of the team that lifted the club’s second Euroleague in 2010 and until a few hours ago the subsidiary’s coach, was taken by surprise by the proposal, but he did not hesitate for a second to take a “very cool train, one of the best that there is in the world”.
“I am quite convinced that more trains pass by, but this train is very cool, one of the best in the world. A proposal like this must be accepted,” Grimau explained to Barça TV in his first interview as coach of the Blaugrana first team.
“Before he finished the sentence, he had already said yes,” he revealed about his conversation with the manager of the section and his former teammate in the Barcelona team, Juan Carlos Navarro. “I’ve been a culé since I was born, I know how the culés are, the Catalans. I am very convinced that everything will go well”, indicated a Grimau who feels “covered” by the sports managers of basketball, Navarro and Mario Fernández.
“It sounds good, it sounds very good to me. And it will also sound good to people at the end of the season,” he added about those who doubt his worth due to his little pedigree and lack of experience in the band. Grimau promises to dedicate “every hour of the day and more” to working for the Barça team, whose main objective next season, despite the salary cuts and the departure of Mirotic, will be to win the third Euroleague.
Although there are still days left to meet his new pupils, the former Barça player between 2003 and 2011 already imagines what his Barça will be like: “I like to play happy, hook people. I have to land, see what team we have exactly, adapt the pieces and find the balance. We hope to do a very good basketball”.
In the same way that happened in 2003, when he signed for Barça from Lleida, Grimau’s arrival on the bench coincides with the departure of Jasikevicius, whom he has “admired as one of the best players in Europe”. “As a coach I have had him close, learning a lot by watching his training. He has done a great job. It is a decision of the club”, he valued the work and the output of the Lithuanian.
“When things go wrong, it’s important to have people from home. You have to instill that in those who come,” explained Grimau, who knows the club’s homegrown players perfectly after training for years as a coach in the lower categories. “I was very happy in youth basketball, super happy, it wasn’t work, I enjoyed it. I had the ambition to be the first coach and it better be at Barça”, concluded a radiant Grimau, especially optimistic with the two years that await him at the helm of the Barcelona first team.
