Surprise in Munich
FC Bayern basketball players bring back coaching icon
12/22/2025 – 6:02 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
It was only on Saturday that the FC Bayern basketball players fired coach Gordon Herbert. Now there is already a successor. It’s an old friend.
Former champion coach Svetislav Pešić surprisingly returns to the FC Bayern basketball team as coach. The Munich team quickly presented a successor to Germany’s world champion coach Gordon Herbert. “I’m happy that the club believes that I can help in such a situation,” said the 76-year-old the day before the Euroleague home game on Tuesday evening (7:30 p.m.) against leaders Hapoel Tel Aviv.
The veteran should look after the Munich team until the end of the season. Sports director Dragan Tarlać said he was very happy to have hired a coach who knew what the team needed now and identified with the club. He reported on rejections from candidates – and was happy about the short-term help from ex-coach Pešić.
Pešić, who also ended his role as national coach after Serbia’s surprising exit from the European Championships in September, can look back on a great resume. In 2002 he celebrated the world championship title with what was then Yugoslavia, and in 2001 he became European champion. Serbia won the bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. They won the small final there against Germany, which had led Pešić to the European Championship title in 1993.
The experienced coach also won many European and national titles with his club teams – including four German championships with Alba Berlin and one with FC Bayern. He worked for the Munich team from 2012 to 2016.
In the first game after Herbert, FC Bayern had a commanding 83:55 victory at the Telekom Baskets in the Bundesliga’s record-breaking game Bonn retracted. “We are firmly convinced that he can help us immediately,” said President Herbert Hainer the day after the victory in Cologne. Curious: Marko Pešić, the coach’s son, will quit as Munich’s managing director at the end of the year.