XAVI PASCUAL_31 Masterminds of European Basketball

From City Hall
to Barcelona´s
bench
Xavi
Pascual
Of course, the title is figurative, but
it sums up two important things
in the life of Xavi Pascual: his
professional formation and the
passion that later became his profession.
Between 2001 and 2005
Pascual, an industrial engineer, worked in the city
hall of Viladecans, a town in the Barcelona area.
However, his soul gravitated towards basketball.
To find his basketball origins, we have to go back
to 1990, when Pascual coached kids at the humble CB
Gava club. His way to the top was slow, but always
in the right direction. He went step by step, with patience
and the will to learn. When he signed for CB
Cornella in 1994 to coach the under-20 and B teams,
it was a huge step forward. Between 1995 and 1997
he was an assistant for Agusti Cuesta in that club.
His next stages were in the lower national categories
with CB Santfeliuenc and CB Olesa, a team
that Pascual managed to promote to the Spanish
fourth division. He then won that league with Aracena,
moved up to the third division and, the following
season, to the second. The qualities of the young
coach did not go unnoticed, and in 2004 he got a
surprise call from FC Barcelona.
He was signed as a coach for the team in the fourth
division and also as a coordinator for youth teams. By
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Vladimir Stankovic
the 2005-06 season, Pascual had become an assistant
coach for the FC Barcelona first team under Dusko
Ivanovic. That’s when he decided to go full-time with
basketball and went from an industrial engineer to a
basketball engineer. He was up for the challenge, even
if he knew that it would be no bed of roses.
The key moment in his career took place in February
of 2008. Ivanovic was released after saying that he
could do no better with the team he had, so the club
used the temporary solution of promoting assistant
Pascual to the helm. However, that temporary measure
lasted a few seasons and was successful, to boot.
Pascual started with a contract until the end of
that season, in which Barcelona finished second in the
Spanish League regular season. In the playoffs, Barcelona
swept Valencia 2-0 in the quarterfinals and then
won 2-1 against Unicaja in semis. For the finals, the
opponent was Baskonia, which had earned the homecourt
advantage. Barca and Pascual started the series
with a surprising road win in Vitoria. Baskonia was leading
80-79, but with 2 seconds on the clock, Gianluca
Basile netted a three-pointer from 8 meters – his only
shot that day – but it gave the edge to Barcelona. It was
a close game that went to the wire and featured a surprising
coach on the opposing bench: Dusko Ivanovic.
“The game started badly for us,” Pascual said that
day. “Baskonia had 22 shots in the first quarter, and we
had 10 – and that was a burden. In the second quarter,
we managed to come back on all fronts, and we had
some small advantages that were decisive in the end.
In the end, a single shot decided the game and we were
lucky.” Baskonia tied the series two days later, winning
75-67, but the next two games were to be played in Barcelona,
and the hosts managed to win them both, 85-
67 and 90-77, to become the Spanish champs. A coach
with three months’ worth of experience at the head of
the bench in the Spanish League was now a champion!
“Doubt was a normal thing when I took the reins of
the team because I was a young coach and it’s normal
that people have these doubts,” Pascual said. “I think
the team played at a good level all season; we were
consistent. I am happy to have won dishing 20 assists
because it shows we are a team in which everybody
helps each other. We are united.”
Thos 20 assists that he mentioned define Pascual’s
philosophy as a coach.
“Coaches have to adapt to the players that they
have in order for things to work,” he said in an interview.
“If you have marathon runners you cannot
sprint. If you have sprinters, you cannot make them
run a marathon. The important thing is to win.”
Some say that Pascual is a defensive coach first,
but his teams score many points on the fastbreak.
“You play 24 seconds on defense and 24 on offense.
Another thing is whether you try to run or not
when you steal the ball,” Pascual stated. “My teams
try to defend, run and play in a dynamic way.”
The stellar moment of his career was in 2009-10.
Barcelona ended the EuroLeague regular season as
Group A leader with a 10-0 record, averaging 83.3
points, against Montepaschi Siena, Zalgiris Kaunas,
Cibona Zagreb, ASVEL Villeurbanne and Fenerbahce
Istanbul. In the Top 16, Barca just lost a single game
against Partizan, 66-67, defeating Panathinaikos and
Maroussi twice.
In the playoffs, Barcelona managed to get rid of
archrival Real Madrid, coached by Ettore Messina,
with a 3-1 decision that sent the team to the Final Four
in Paris. There, at Bercy Arena, Barca defeated CSKA
Moscow in the semifinals, 64-54, thanks to great
defense. Olympiacos waited in the title game, which
Barcelona dominated from start to finish winning all
quarters for an 86-68 final score. The legendary Juan
Carlos Navarro was named Final Four MVP with 21
points on 4-for-9 three-point shooting, and Barcelona
lifted its second EuroLeague title.
“We played 22 games in the Euroleague this
season, and we won 20,” Pascual said. “So it’s been
a wonderful season for us, and this was a great way
to close it out. Tonight, we moved the ball very well,
we attacked well, played defense, got free throws. It’s
difficult to do in the final, but we played our game, and
we stuck with the way we play. I am delighted and I am
happy for our players, who worked hard all year and
got rewarded with this victory.
“Coaches always live for their last game. This one
was marvelous. It’s a wonderful, important moment.
I know the life we have as coaches. In the future, we
can lose and anything can happen in the crazy world of
coaching. But you should never doubt. You have to walk
forward clearly and look things straight in the face.”
Xavi Pascual knows how to treat stars. He shares
the idea that basketball is a collective game and that
results depend on the work of the whole team, but he
knows that the best ones need to be protagonists. In
Barcelona, he worked with several stars, especially
Navarro. Later, Pascual worked at Panathinaikos Athens
and he had Nick Calathes.
Because of his age – he was born on September 9,
1972 – Pascual is still a young man, but with almost
300 games in the EuroLeague (290 between Barcelona
and Panathinaikos) and many titles conquered, he
is an expert coach. His resume includes, aside from
the 2010 EuroLeague crown, four Spanish Leagues
and three Spanish Cup trophies, two Greek Leagues,
a Greek Cup, four Spanish SuperCups and seven Catalan
Leagues. In Spain, he was chosen coach of the
year in 2009, 2010 and 2011. His worst year, with “only”
a 67.6% winning percentage, was in 2012-13. His
best one was a 26-0 finish in the Greek League regular
season with Panathinaikos in 2017-18.
Pascual is a coach with character, but also polite.
He was hardly ever called for technical fouls. His
statements after games were always at academy
level, with full respect for the opponent. In December
of 2018, Pascual was waived by Panathinaikos, but he
accepted his new situation in a very natural manner.
“When you are a coach, you know there are some
decisions that you cannot control,” he said after leaving
Athens. “You just know that you have to do your
best and not think about it too much. I tried to give my
best and things were great. At the start of the season,
we were fighting to be in the EuroLeague Playoffs.”
There’s no doubt that being the kind of coach he
is, Xavi Pascual will not be unemployed for long. Basketball
needs him.
Xavi Pascual
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