The avalanche of Finnish basketball coaches to the world continues. Most recently Jussi Laakso was selected as the head coach of the German Bundesliga team Crailsheim Merlins from the beginning of the week.
Laakso didn’t even actively seek jobs from abroad.
He led the Seagulls to the Finnish championship last season and returned the Pantteri statue to Helsinki after a 25-year hiatus.
After that, Laakso wanted to take it easy and spend more time with his family. The basketball coach hadn’t had an actual summer vacation in many ten years.
The summers had been spent in various national team assignments.
When Urheilu caught up with Laakso preparing to leave for Germany, the coach’s feelings were mixed. At the same time, the first time in a long career abroad inspired me, but I also had family in mind.
– Leaving a 14-year-old boy and a 2.5-year-old girl far away is a difficult thing. Otherwise, I’m happy about what happened, Laakso describes.
Coaching abroad was not Laakso’s goal because of the family situation.
Laakso, 47, was more likely to look after the players in the Basketball Association and Finnish basketball clubs in management positions, rather than abroad.
Laakso maintained a professional feel when he worked in the coaching team of the Finnish women’s national basketball team. However, Laakso received a surprising message on the morning of the EC qualifying match against Hungary last Sunday.
When Laakso was leaving for the preparatory training for the match, a familiar German agent Daniel Poerschke sent a message. However, he was not yet Laakso’s agent at that point.
Poerschke was an old acquaintance from many years ago. Laakso had worked as a coach at the camps of Poerschke’s agency in Las Vegas.
– He said that changes are happening in the Bundesliga and asked if you are ready yet. He asked if he could throw my name in the mix, Laakso says.
The experienced coach assumed that nothing would happen immediately after the call. However, just 19 hours after the surprise message, Laakso was sitting on a plane on his way to Frankfurt to meet the club management of Crailsheim Merlins.
After a long job interview in the hotel suite, they shook hands and agreed that Laakso would become the new head coach of Crailsheim.
– I didn’t have any super goal that now I have to go or have to go abroad. This came a bit out of the blue and at a pretty fast pace, Laakso expressed.
When the contract was signed and published on Tuesday, Laakso’s phone was filled with messages. There were hundreds of contacts, all kinds of calls and messages.
– There will be no such offers. They come to pick up from home less often. Even the head coach lost in the Bundesliga. Of course, I am really proud of myself that I have reached such a situation and that I was offered this job, Laakso described.
The great importance of pioneers in the background
Laakso is currently no less than the third Finnish head coach in the tough German Bundesliga. Joonas Iisalo pilot Heidelberg. Daniel Jansson is at the helm of Tübingen. Daniel Herbert worked already before Laakso’s arrival in Crailsheim’s coaching team.
Currently one of the most celebrated basketball coaches in Europe Tuomas Iisalo has gotten off to a flying start in France. Iisalon Paris Basketball has been undefeated in the Eurocup so far. Only the Euroleague team Monaco is ahead in the French premier league.
With Susijeng’s head coach Lassi Tuovi has been a convincing start as the first assistant coach of Virtus Bologna. Virtus Bologna is at the top of Europe’s first division, the Euroleague, and the Italian premier league.
Anton Mirolybov has won two Austrian championships as head coach of Swans Gmunden. Now he coaches in Gmunden Samuli Nieminen with. Gmunden is second in the series.
Last season, Daniel Jansson was chosen as the best coach of Germany’s second-best league level ProA. Tübingen scraped together the three million euro budget required for the Bundesliga and was able to rise to the highest league level.
Of course, a very unique story from the beginning of the season was when Canadian-Finnish Gordon Herbert led Germany to the world championship. Germany is also a candidate for success in next summer’s Paris Olympics.
When looking at other big and global ball sports, basketball stands out along with volleyball.
In volleyball, Finnish coaches have been as successful as in basketball. The clearest example is the one who led the Russians to Olympic silver and celebrated the Champions League victory in Poland last spring Tuomas Sammelvuo. However, even volleyball has not reached the same mass as in basketball in the world.
In football, on the other hand, there has even been concern as to whether a Finnish football coach compares even to a Spanish skiing coach. 11 friends on the football podcast Jussi Vainikka, Maiju Rootsalainen and Erkka V. Lehtola bit into the topic at the end of October.
Laakso sees the importance of pioneers behind the avalanche of Finnish basketball coaches. Already in the first decade of the 21st century Henrik Dettmann, Ari Tammivaara and Anton Mirolybov cleared the way for the Finns.
Dettmann took over as assistant coach Lassi Tuovin To Turkey and France in the mid-2010s. Since then, Tuovi became head coach of Strasbourg in France. Tuovi was fired from France last season, but the Finland connection returned last week.
A member of Susijeng’s coaching team Mikko Larkas was appointed assistant coach of Strasbourg.
Laakso runs in Germany by the former Crailsheim coaches Iisalo brothers and Vesa Version footprints.
In addition to the pioneers, Laakso highlights the fact that the education of Finnish basketball coaches has been very good for many years in the world conquest of Finnish basketball coaches.
Laakso sees that he has benefited from the success of previous Finnish coaches.
– There are actually really qualified basketball coaches in Finland. When there were no Finns abroad yet, the limiting factor seemed to be the Finnish passport. It wasn’t about what Finns can do, Laakso states.
The German Bundesliga is one of the top five or six major leagues in Europe in basketball. We will see many interesting Finnish encounters in the coming weeks.
The three teams coached by the Finns were also the last three Bundesliga teams before the weekend round, but of course also operated with the smallest budgets in the series.
Laakso’s first game is on Monday against Joonas Iisalon Heidelberg. On the first weekend of December, Daniel Jansson’s Tübingen will visit Crailsheim. Important series points are therefore being shared.
– Crailsheim is a traditional working-class town. They enjoy when the team fights and grinds. Such Finnish domestic affairs. However, they have sometimes been missing in recent games. Now they are trying to return them, Laakso looks to the future.