Alba Berlin: New sports director Himer Ojeda: “Almost like in the NBA” – Tagesspiegel

17:35 From Dominik Bardow <- self.position: 1 -> <- classid: hcf-center -> <- position: center -> <- textposition: hcf text-left -> <- inisprint: false -> <- inhaspic: true ->

Alba Berlin introduces its new sporting director. With the 43-year-old Spaniard Himar Ojeda Berlin Basketball Club is even more international.

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On Wednesday has as usual, the management of Alba Berlin made regular round took however – a first – the first time in English instead. Because Himar Ojeda sat a new user. The new sports director still does not speak German, and then the six-member circle moved the Spaniard sake language. “By October he has what it takes but that he has promised,” CEO Marco Baldi said next day, laughed and looked over at Ojeda, who was whispering translated Baldis versions.

“Good Morning, Everyone” , the new man presented then, before moving permanently in good, fluent in English. In Alba Berlin, which was clearly the introductory appointment to the office as early as Thursday, it comes to the future even more international. While the coaches and basketball at Alba has always been from around the world – read: from North America and from the Balkans – come, now a foreigner accepts the first time an important official posts in the team

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And the responsibility that Alba transmits the Bundesliga rookie is great. “We would like pulses in the youth program of him that he accompanied the team and the coaches and players obliged fit our budget and our style,” Baldi formulated the requirement profile. Ojeda, whom he knows from the art for years, met the criteria. In addition, he must not only new to the job teach how his predecessor Henning Harnisch and Mithat Demirel, who joined last September to Istanbul. Ojeda has already proven to manager positions at CB Gran Canaria and Estudiantes Madrid that he is able to find good players even with limited resources. He also knows the European market well, he observed thereafter as a scout for the NBA club Atlanta Hawks. Even Germany and Berlin he visited often, but from each of Spain. Berlin is the first foreign station for the man from the Canary Islands, who has signed a contract for three and a half years and his family will follow him in the summer from Gran Canaria to Berlin. “It is a challenge, I like that,” he says.

Still running Ojeda with wondering eyes through Berlin

At the moment, the 43-year-old runs Monday night arrived yet with wondering eyes through Berlin. In Albas 83:90 against Würzburg he not as before sat there Demirel the team on the bench, but on the sidelines. That he would so continue as usual in Spain. “The impression of the team yesterday was not so good,” Ojeda admitted, but he had previously seen in training and on video that the team can more clearly. From the organization ago Alba was anyway “even better than expected, almost like in the NBA”

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But how will Ojeda Alba shape, lead to success or even titles? Especially since the competition from Bamberg and Munich seems enteilt financially? Ojeda fled because even in cloudy phrases: He wanted to continue the good must be only an overview. And of course kick Alba Saturday’s Top Four tournament in order to reach the cup final against Frankfurt. But still had to guess already what Ojeda could plan. Approximately when he raved about Walter Tavares, he had discovered with 17 years in Cape Verde and mediated in the NBA. In the future, Alba could not be confined to Berlin schools in the talent search. “Why not take a player from Southern Germany or South Africa?”, Ojeda asked rhetorically. For the professional team he envisioned before, “a solid team for a longer period to establish”.

That will be difficult, if other teams lure with lucrative offers. Almost as hard to learn German as. Ojeda considered to look for the many trips a tutor. But “Basketball is anyway an international business, in the most discussed in English,” said Baldi. Now just in Albas Management rounds.