By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Sarunas Jasikevicius’ reign at Barcelona is over. Despite Barcelona’s willingness to retain him, the Lithuanian coach will not continue with the Catalan team as was officially announced by the club.
Per the press release: “The club is starting a new project in the basketball section and has reached an agreement with Roger Grimau, who will be the Barcelona coach for the next two seasons, until June 30, 2025.
Grimau, 44 years old, has been the coach of Barça Atlètic and juniors for the last two seasons (2021-23), achieving great results. From 2018 to 2021, he was the assistant coach of the second team in the LEB Gold and LEB Plata. As a player, he wore the Barça jersey for 8 seasons (2003-2011) and was the captain who lifted the Euroleague in 2010.
FC Barcelona would like to publicly express its gratitude to Sarunas Jasikevicius for the professionalism, commitment, dedication, and positive and close treatment he has always shown towards all the estates that make up the Barcelona family and wishes him luck and success in the future. Barça will always be your home. In the three seasons as Barcelona coach (2020-23), Jasikevicius has won two Spanish Endesa Leagues titles (2021, 2023), as well as two Copes del Rey (2021, 2022) and a Catalan League (2022).
In this period, Barça has played in three consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours (2021, 2022 and 2023).
Sarunas Jasikevicius leaves the bench with a total of 268 games managed between Liga Endesa (131), Euroleague (118), Copa del Rey (7), Supercopa (6), and Liga Catalana (6). If we break down the numbers, out of 268 matches they have won on 204 occasions (108 ACB, 82 Euroleague, 6 Cup, 3 Supercopa, 4 Catalan League), while they have been defeated on 64 occasions (23 ACB, 36 Euroleague, 1 Cup, 3 Supercopa and 2 Catalan League)”.
A sudden turn of events
Even before finishing the season with a sweep over Real Madrid in the ACB finals, and despite budget cuts, Jasikevicius declared his intention to stay with the club taking a pay cut.
After the season was officially over, even Barcelona’s team manager, the legendary Juan Carlos Navarro, confirmed that the club wants to keep him. However, in a surprising turn of events, Jasikevicius’ reign at Barcelona is over, probably due to financial woes, which are well documented specially in the football section of the club.
Jasikevicius joined Barcelona in 2020 after spending four years at Zalgiris Kaunas at the start of his coaching career (two more as an assistant prior to that).