At Ivković's farewell match, which could not be held in his native Belgrade, but in Greece, due to "technical and logistical problems", the clock was stopped 28 seconds before the end of the match. The symbolism is related to the number of trophies that Dušan Duda Ivković won in his coaching career
The Yugoslav national team at the European Championship in Zagreb in 1989, consisting of Dražen Petrović, Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoč, Dino Radja, Žarko Paspalj, Predrag Danilović, Stojan Vranković, Jure Zdovc, Zoran Čutura, Zdravko Radulović, Zoran Radović and Mario Primorac, is probably the best non-American team to ever appear on a basketball court. The supremacy shown at this championship was never seen on basketball courts in Europe until then, and even later. The average difference they won by was more than 20 points per game, while in the final against Greece, the difference of 22 points did not show the events on the field in the best way. A display by the youngest team in the championship prevented the game from ending with a margin of more than 30 points.
A year later, at the World Championship in Argentina, the Yugoslav national team dominated and won the gold medal. With an almost unchanged team, but without the biggest star Dražen Petrović, who was replaced by Saša Đorđević, in 1991 the title of champion was won again at the European Championship. It was the last competition in which the senior national team of the former Yugoslavia participated.
It is easiest to describe what the Yugoslavian team looked like at that time when it is compared to the USA team at the time when NBA players were allowed to play in the national team. The collapse of Yugoslavia prevented the two best teams in the history of basketball from meeting at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 - the American and European "dream team".
The selector of the national team at all three mentioned competitions was Dušan Duda Ivković.
A timeless personality
Upon hearing the news of Dusan Duda Ivković's death, his players and fellow coaches came from all over the world, emphasizing his role in the development of basketball over the past 50 years, as well as the personal relationship he had with them. The greatest living coach and authority of the NBA League, Greg Popovic, stated: "Dusan Ivkovic is an icon of basketball." His personality is timeless, and he was the master of this sport. My time spent with Duda, whether in Europe or the United States of America, was filled with wonderful moments, having him in my company was something special. My deepest condolences to Nena and the entire family during these difficult times."
REPRESENTATION OF THE NEW STATE
At the moment when Yugoslavia disappeared in the wars, on the territory of the newly formed state that consisted of Serbia and Montenegro, a team could be put together that would continue to represent a basketball superpower: Saša Đorđević, Predrag Danilović, Saša Obradović, Vlade Divac, Žarko Paspalj, Zoran Savić and young Dejan Bodiroga formed the backbone of that national team. Sports sanctions, however, prevented the continuation of the competition and the representative career of both the players and their coach for the next three years.
What should be especially emphasized is that during the period of sanctions, Dušan Ivković used his authority in the clubs to maintain the cult of the national team, which could not officially compete anywhere. Every summer, he gathered potential national team members and held preparations on his own, to which all players responded without question. He invented the names under which the national team played in various tournaments, knowingly violating sports sanctions. His wife bought sports equipment at local stores where players played tournaments and trained. They fought in different ways, all with the aim of keeping the team until the moment when the national team will be allowed to play officially again.
When, after the sanctions were lifted, it was decided that the athletes of Serbia and Montenegro could compete again, with the help of Bora Stanković, who hastily organized an additional qualifying tournament, the national team qualified for the European Championship in Athens in 1995. Years of personal renunciation and care for their team have borne fruit. The team of Serbia and Montenegro becomes the champion of Europe in an unforgettable final against Lithuania. It was the "last dance" of the big teams from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, now wearing the jerseys of some other countries.
With four gold medals in four major competitions in which he participated as a coach, in the period from 1988, when he took over the Yugoslavian team, until 1995, Dušan Ivković wrote the history of coaching. No coach in the history of European basketball has managed to do something like that. Probably never will.
BEGINNINGS AND CLUB CAREER
The Red Cross, a part of Belgrade that is no more than 1000 meters in diameter, marked the life of Dusan Ivković. During his growing up, the Radnički sports club was a gathering place for young people from this part of the city. That was a time when masculinity and masculinity were viewed differently than today. You had to study and work from the earliest teenage years, and you earned your reputation in society by not avoiding, for today's time, harmless fights with your peers from the city center, in which you defended the honor of your region.
The name "Belgrade mangup" defined him throughout his life, but in the most positive sense of the word. He knew how to calm down and shout, but never with bad intentions or disrespect towards the interlocutor. Today, people would say "Mr. Man." The role model in his life and growing up was always his six years older brother Slobodan Piva Ivković, a player and coach of the basketball section of Radnicki.
It was easy then, as it is today, to get lost in development. In parallel with basketball, which was his greatest love in life, he had to have an education. Back then, basketball did not allow for an easy life. Along with his brother who guided him in life, he graduated from the Faculty of Mining and Geology in parallel with basketball and obtained an engineering degree. "My father gave me perseverance, persistence and faith in work and taught me that family upbringing is the foundation of a person. He once told me: 'Son, it's better to be a good craftsman than a bad intellectual,'" Ivković once said.
After returning from the JNA, in 1971, he took over the junior team of Radnicki, which after three years became the junior champion of Yugoslavia. That success, in the strongest league in Europe at the time, recommended him for work in the junior selections of the Yugoslav national team. Also, working in the junior selections taught him to take care of the organization of the club, in addition to coaching. The organization of the club, today called sports management, became a desirable feature of a modern coach only after thirty years. Duda Ivković is the first coach who understood the future of club basketball.
The highlight of his career while working in the younger categories was the title of Junior World Champion in 1976. Ranko Žeravica takes him as an assistant coach of the senior team of Partizan, and after a year he becomes the first coach. In the first year on the Partizan bench, in the 1978/79 season. becomes the champion of Yugoslavia, the winner of the Cup and wins the Radivoj Korac European Cup. Until then, it was Partizan's biggest success in the club's history. In the same year, Bosnia became the champion of Europe, just as an illustration of the strength of the Yugoslav basketball championship at that time.
WORK ABROAD
He started his international career in 1980. For two years, he was the coach of Aris, in which Nikos Galis, the biggest name of Greek basketball, played, but his obligations in the national team prevented him from devoting himself to a career abroad.
Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, he has worked in Greek and Russian clubs. He coached, apart from Panathinaikos, all the biggest teams in Greece, PAOK, Aris, Panionios, Olympiakos and AEK. He was with PAOK in the 1992/93 season. won the Championship of Greece and third place in the Final Four of the Euroleague. After PAOK he took over Panionios, but he achieved his greatest success in Greece on the bench of Olympiakos. With organizational skills, as well as coaching skills, he managed to lay the foundations of Greek club basketball, which in the next three decades represented a European club superpower.
Perhaps the best illustration for this is the title of European champion with Olympiakos, a club that has always been in a subordinate position compared to the richer and more successful Panathinaikos. In the 1996/97 season. won his second "triple crown" in his club career. After Partizan, he repeated it with Olympiakos, who, in addition to the championship and the Greek Cup, also lifted the Euroleague trophy.
Going to CSKA Moscow was a big surprise for many. He took over the famous club at a time when it was in a major financial and organizational crisis. In the period from 2002 to 2005, in addition to coaching, he also performed organizational work. He won three Russian championship titles and reached the Final Four of the Euroleague every year. Due to the revival of the club, he received the title "architect of modern CSKA". He worked for two years in Dinamo from Moscow, with which he won the Uleba Cup (2006).
Along with duties on the bench of the Serbian national team, where he was from 2008 to 2013, he returns to Olympiakos (2010-2012). This period on the Olympiakos bench was marked by the final of the Euroleague (2012), in which the Olympiakos team was losing by 19 points with 11 minutes left in the game. The calmness he showed in crucial moments, now already in his late coaching years, gave strength and faith to the players that they could do the impossible. In the last second of the game, Printezis scores a basket to win (62:61). The second title of European champion for Olympiakos and the confirmation of the cult status of Dusan Ivković among the fans of this team.
Two passions
People who knew him say that, apart from basketball, Duda Ivković had another great passion - pigeons. In the middle of the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, there was a large community of pigeon fanciers in Belgrade. Like basketball, he fell in love with pigeon racing with his brother and maintained this relationship until the end of his life.
He once said about his love for pigeons: "My father told me that those who look at pigeons are always in the clouds." That there are problems with school and things like that. And that's why he was against it. I was also against my sons paying so much attention to pigeons, but I thought differently when I was a child. Pigeons have been with me my whole life, I breed Serbian high-flyers, in every contract I signed there was a clause to make a place for pigeons in my house. Unfortunately, it was impossible only in Moscow, it's too cold."
ALL TITLES IN THE TREASURY
Duda Ivković is the only basketball coach in Europe who won all four European club competitions in his career: Korać Cup (1979), Saporte Cup (2000), Euroleague (1997, 2012) and ULEB Cup (2006).
Duda Ivković's coaching career was also marked by his authority, both towards the players and club owners. He left every club he coached in a much better state than the one he found him at. He laid the foundations of today's club basketball in Russia and Greece. Many of our coaches found work in those countries with the help of Ivković and on his recommendation.
He finished his career in Anadolu Efes from Istanbul (2014-2016), where he laid the foundations for his current success, and turned the club that was struggling in the Turkish championship, without significant international success, into today's European champion and one of the best clubs on the continent. in the last five years.
After finishing his coaching career, he became a member of the FIBA Technical Commission. He decided to spend his basketball retirement in his native Belgrade. Accustomed to the orderly system he strove for throughout his basketball career, he did not resist pointing out the situation in which Serbia finds itself today. That's why he experienced being attacked by tabloid "journalists" in his basketball retirement just because he saw where his Belgrade and his Serbia were going and decided to say something about it.
"Mangup from the Red Cross" also experienced that he could not win the farewell match in his home Belgrade. Greece reluctantly agreed to organize a farewell for the coach who placed their club basketball at the top of Europe. This disgrace and the match of the "white and American dream team" prevented by sanctions at the 1992 Olympic Games are the two biggest defeats of Duda Ivković. And none of it is his fault. Politics, world and local, got involved. And Dušan Ivković left a legacy to world and European basketball, and he will be remembered for that.
The last farewell
Dušan Ivković was buried on Tuesday, September 21 at the New Cemetery in Belgrade, in the presence of a large number of his players, fellow coaches and friends from the country and abroad. His friend, the actor Goran Sultanović, gave a farewell speech. The coffin with the body of Dušan Ivković was carried by his successor as coach Željko Obradović and the players who were the game bearers in the Yugoslav national team: Vlade Divac, Dino Rađa, Predrag Danilović, Žarko Paspalj and Jure Zdovc.
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