A three-time EuroLeague champion as a player, this will be his first head coaching gig in Europe's premier club basketball competition
Monaco names Vassilis Spanoulis as head coach
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Vassilis Spanoulis has returned to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague after AS Monaco appointed the EuroLeague Basketball Legend as the team's new head coach on a two-year deal with an option for a further year, the club confirmed on Tuesday.
The 42-year-old replaces Sasa Obradovic, who guided Monaco over the last three seasons. The principality club has a 7-4 record in the EuroLeague so far this season, with interim head coach Manuchar Markoishvili securing a victory in Round 11 in his only game in charge.
Peculiarly enough, Spanoulis's first two games on the Monaco bench will come against Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens (on Friday night) and Olympiacos Piraeus (the following Wednesday), two clubs he knows very well.
He spent his first four EuroLeague seasons with the Greens, winning the 2009 EuroLeague title, but broke the supporters' hearts by moving to archrival Olympiacos Piraeus in 2010.
With the Reds, he wrote his name into EuroLeague – and Olympiacos – legend by leading the team to back-to-back EuroLeague titles in 2012 and 2013. Spanoulis played for Olympiacos for 11 seasons before retiring in 2021.
Spanoulis, a three-time EuroLeague champion as a player and until last season the all-time top scorer in the competition, will take charge of a Monaco side with big ambitions. The team is headlined by Mike James, the reigning EuroLeague MVP and the man who took over as the competition's all-time leading scorer last season.
For Spanoulis, this will be his EuroLeague coaching debut, nearly three years after he took his first coaching steps as the head coach of the Next Generation Teams in a series of Adidas NextGen EuroLeague tournaments.
Over the past two seasons, Spanoulis had been the head coach of Peristeri Athens. During that time he led the team to its first-ever Greek Cup final appearance in 2023 and the FIBA Champions League Final Four, a competition where he was also honored as Coach of the Year. Spanoulis also serves as the Greek national team coach.
As a player, Spanoulis shined on the biggest of stages and in clutch moments, as he defined what it means to be a clutch player in the EuroLeague.
His legacy was built on game-changing performances on the biggest stage. He assisted Georgios Printezis for the shot of the last decade to win the 2012 EuroLeague title, the first for Olympiacos in 15 years. Then, one year later, he blew up the 2013 championship game with 5 three-pointers among 22 second-half points to complete a 17-point comeback that helped the Reds become back-to-back champions.
Spanoulis finished his career with 4,455 points, 518 three-pointers made and 1,607 assists, and he remains the only player in EuroLeague history to have amassed more than 4,000 points and 1,500 assists.
He now takes on another EuroLeague journey, this time roaming the sidelines.