#21 Freddie: Fredrick Kleemichen grew up in Bremerhaven as the son of an American father and German mother, signed his first pro-contract in 2002 with Frankfurt (Opel) Skyliners at the age of 15 and moved to a new city with new hope and big dreams. “Freddie” as we all call him, is not a household name in the world of basketball right now but he definitely used to be! He had a roller-coaster journey from being one of the highly touted prospects in Germany to moving down the latter and playing in ...
Feb 14, 2022•1 hr 17 min
#20 Šaras: Šarunas Jasikevičius is a successful Head Coach at Barcelona and his career is basically just getting started now but he already brought home domestic titles in Lithuania as well as Spain. As a player he has a rich experience between a variety of cultures, starting from the time when he left Lithuania at the age of 17 to live in the US, going from High School to later on joining the University of Maryland. When he returned to Europe as a player, his success just took off exponentially...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 20 min
#19 Claudio: Claudio Coldebella is a former Italian basketball player, GM of the Italian 2nd Division and currently a successful Sports Director at Unics Kazan. Claudio started his playing career in Mestre in 1986 before moving to Desio and Virtus Bologna later on. Claudio also has the experience of playing abroad, he spent 6 years of his career in Greece playing for AEK and PAOK before returning to Italy and finishing his career in Milano in 2006. Claudio also spent many summers with the Italia...
Jan 17, 2022•1 hr 17 min
#18 Noel: Noel Mikaelian is an Armenian-German Cruiserweight Division Boxer who is currently on his quest to becoming World Champion and is without a doubt the #1 contender. He held the WBO youth world & WBO International cruiserweight title in 2014 & 2016. After being born in Yerevan, Armenia he moved to Germany at a young age and started to box early on by watching his step-father Khoren Gevor, who was a world-class boxer in his own right. Noel is currently 24-2 with 10 wins coming by ...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 24 min
#17 Daniele Daniele Baiesi is currently a successful Sports Director at FC Bayern Munich. After leading Brose Bamberg to multiple domestic titles in Germany he continued his successful run at FC Bayern Munich in 2017 and has lead the team to multiple titles since his arrival as well. Daniele started his basketball career at Pallacanestro Biella in 2003 in the Italian league where he spent 6 years. The Detroit Pistons were his next stage where he worked as their international scout and had the pl...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 20 min
Stefan Weissenboeck is a player development coach at Brose Bamberg since 2010/11 season and has worked under the coaches Chris Fleming & Andrea Trinchieri most notably with whom he won multiple domestic titles during this period. He picked up basketball through his father and was committed early on as a player in Austria as well as one year at Hawaii-Pacific. After injuries derailed his playing career he turned to being an Assistant Coach before discovering the niche role of a Player Develop...
Dec 07, 2021•1 hr 18 min
#15 Giannis: Giannis Sfairopoulos has been a successful Head Coach since taking over Kolossos Rhodos in 2008 after being a top Assistant for 11years in Greece. After a brief stint as the Assistant Coach at CSKA Moscow under Jonas Kazlauskas during the 2011-12 season, he turned Head Coach once again and continued his upward journey until now, becoming the Head Coach of Olympiacos in 2014 and in Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2018. Giannis has captured two Greek League titles in Greece with Olympiacos and co...
Nov 30, 2021•1 hr 29 min
#14 Andrea: Firstly, I apologize for the slight delay in our conversation. The audio and video was not synced perfectly but is still very much useful…the wifi was playing jokes on us, we’ll make sure to tell the ‘Internet Gods’ to take care of that next time! Andrea Trinchieri is as good as they come and today he took me for a ride around his world. I got to see a glimpse of his past and mindset as well as his rich history with a variety of cultures in his background. Andrea is international as ...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 23 min
Nicola is a dedicated Sports Director at SIG Strasbourg and to me the most underrated at his profession. Nicola worked predominantly in Italy before leaving the country and joining Strasbourg in 2020. He is a native of Forli, Italy just as Maurizio Gherardini is and went from picking up valuable lessons from his mentor, to later becoming a General Manager and Sports Director himself. After taking a detour to the hotel business and becoming a hotel manager for almost a decade, he returned back to...
Nov 08, 2021•1 hr 28 min
#12 “Bogues”: Andrew Bogut doesn’t need much introduction for all sports fans. He grew up in Melbourne, went on to play for the AIS before signing a letter of intent for the University of Utah and becoming the #1 pick in 2005’s NBA Draft after his sophomore year. Andrew had a phenomenal career not only in the NBA where he became a NBA champ in 2015 with the Golden State Warriors but also with the Boomers when competing for the Australian National Team in the Olympics in 2004, 2008 & 2016 as ...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr 29 min
Nikos finished his glorious career this summer after playing 21 years professionally. He started off at AEK as a young, up & coming prospect playing for “Duda” Ivkovic before moving abroad early on. Nikos played in 5 different countries outside of Greece…First one being Italy before moving to Russia to play for CSKA, his university as he called it. He also played for the top clubs like Siena, Bilbao, Unics, Fenerbahce, Bamberg & Joventut before returning to AEK to finish where he started...
Oct 11, 2021•1 hr 18 min
Martynas Pocius - Life After Retirement (NBA Front Office) Martynas Pocius, one of the most electric and fun players to watch in Lithuanian basketball history, joined my "Pod" today. His story is a ‘one of one’, after smashing two fingers and losing one completely in an accident in school he managed not only to recover but elevate his game and mentality as well as work ethic to the next level. After spending 4 years at Duke University he played for Zalgiris Kaunas in three different stints throu...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr 27 min
Antanas’ story is a unique one, grindin’ his way up from a small team in Lithuania, through Barton County Community College in the US, finding his way to Texas A&M and coming back to Europe to eventually start his professional career. Antanas started his career in 2007 in Greece before he went on his way to play in Italy, Latvia & Spain. Finally he found his way back to play in Lithuania, having the unique experience to have played for Lietuvos Rytas (now Rytas Vilnius) as well as for Za...
Sep 18, 2021•59 min
Sammy Mejia, my good friend whom I met during our time in Moscow and happened to stay in touch throughout the last decade has had a unique career that started at DePaul University and took him to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants (D-League at the time). He decided early to take on a new career in Europe and signed a contract in Italy his first year. After he finished the 2008 season in Italy, he signed a one year deal in Greece the following year and learned his ways around Europe. The following two seaso...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr
JR Holden - Life After Retirement (Part 1) JR’s career is unique, not only because of how it all ended but mostly because of how it all started. From a ‘try out application’ to go and play in Latvia to winning multiple Euroleague Championships with CSKA Moscow (2006 & 2008) as well as becoming European Champion with the Russian National Team in 2007. On top of all that, JR became an Olympian in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. During this conversation it sounded like he cherished the Greek Leag...
Aug 10, 2021•1 hr 23 min
Ales Pospisil - “European Coffee Trip” Everybody who knows me, knows that I’m a dedicated coffee lover. This is the first of many “Coffee Savant” episodes and it’s only fitting to do it with the person who ignited my passion for ‘The Bean’, Ales Pospisil and the coffee platform: European Coffee Trip. My name gets often auto-corrected to ‘Beans’ anyway, so I suppose it’s my destiny anyways :) In this category of podcast episodes I will talk to a variety of coffee-enthusiasts and cafe owners as we...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Firstly, I have to apologise for my audio, which gives up on my 20mins or so into the podcast, my quality goes down but Coach Itoudis’ works well and that’s the person you need to listen to the most anyway, so please enjoy! Head Coach Dimitris Itoudis’ path to coaching is an unusual one. After leaving his junior soccer team because his long hair was not in line with the coach’s rules he decided to switch to basketball at a young age and the rest is history. In 1990, he chose the path of studying...
May 23, 2021•1 hr 22 min
Andreas Pistiolis is the long time Ast. Coach at CSKA Moscow under the guidance of Coach Dimitris Itoudis. Andreas realized early (age 14) how much he loved coaching & teaching players and found his way into the youth program of Panathinaikos. Soon enough he received an invite by the senior team to join the coaching staff and help Coach Dimitris Itoudis to prepare scouting reports and break down film to help Zeljko Obradovic form a winning dynasty at Panathinaikos. He established himself as ...
May 16, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Kostas Chatzichristos has been the Strengths&Conditioning Coach of CSKA Moscow's basketball team the last 7years and was part of the two Euroleague title runs in 2016 & 2019. Kostas studied at the University of Texas before interning at EXOS and going on to take his first job at the University of Georgia. He later returned to Greece to continue his career at Olympiacos B.C. and later at Panionios as the Head of Performance before taking his talents to CSKA in 2014. He's also the co-found...
May 09, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Dr Rainer Meisterjahn - Mental Performance Coach for Athletes & Coaches Rainer Meisterjahn comes from a small town in central Germany by the name of Arpe, where he grew up and picked up the game of basketball. During that time he went to the US for an exchange year and got a taste of the US culture early on. After going back to Germany he knew he eventually had to “scratch the itch” again and applied to a NAIA school in Maine to play basketball and study Sports Psychology. After earning his ...
Apr 25, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Kyles Hines - The Definition of a Champion! Kyle’s journey from a small town named Sicklerville, New Jersey all the way to the top of the mountain of European basketball is a treat for any basketball savant to listen to and get inspired by. Kyle has been a high achiever ever since he came to Europe, winning 4 Euroleague crowns and countless domestic titles across Europe (Germany, Greece, Russia, Italy). After going undrafted, Kyle went on to join Veroli in Italy’s 2nd division in 2008. Two seaso...
Apr 11, 2021•1 hr 29 min
One of the most accomplished coaches in European history agreed to visit with me on my podcast and talk “all things basketball & life”. Coach Messina is in the FIBA Hall of Fame class of 2021, a 4 time Euroleague Champion, 2 time Euroleague Coach of the Year and won countless domestic titles across Europe. After spending a year as a consultant for the Lakers (2011/12), Ettore came back to CSKA for a second stint and this is where our paths crossed. After the two season together Ettore went o...
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr 20 min
What's up everyone, this is just a short intro to the podcast, nothing glorious this time but I hope it's some sort of a ....cliff-hanger...Please subscribe and learn more about the guests. You can also visit www.bmatke.com if you want to learn more about me...you don't have to though, just if you like...:-)
Mar 12, 2021•2 min
