When Paco Olmos was appointed, I had all those remembrances from his first tenure at Valencia. What a year it was for Pamesa. It was a period where Real Madrid and Barcelona domination ended and the ACB  champion of 2001-2002 was the team of Dusko Ivanovic with Elmer Bennett, Tau Ceramica.

The biggest match of Valencia basketball history was in 2002-2003 ULEB Cup, where Paco Olmos gave the city a present that nobody until that day did not manage to: A European title. More than that, the end of the 2003 season came at ACB finals, where Stevislav Pesic ruled the court and led Barcelona to the crown. The Pesic, that replaced by Paco Olmos in the beginning of this season. Olmos, however left the city at August 2004. 

So it was a nearly 7 years break and during this time, both Valencia and Olmos achieved much. Now Power Electronics Valencia, got a well deserved Eurocup(ULEB Cup) crown with Neven Spahija who left for Fenerbahce afterwards.

This time it was, may be the curse of him that prevent Paco to be successfull because Olmos was the one who stand in front of  Spahija to get ULEB Cup title back in 2003, when the Croatian was the coach of Novo Mesto. Paco Olmos meanwhile, coached Spanish U20 team at 2005 European Championships led the young lads as Marc Gasol, Sergio Rodriguez and Carlos Suarez to a dissappointing 9th place. After then, he left for ViveMenorca and after bringing them back to ACB, did not have a great season and saw his team relegate again.

After Pesic left Valencia for Crvena Zvezda, the team had great expectations for the next year. That was because of the great Serbian coach, who make the team clearly overachived. When he arrived, the team was 1-4 at Euroleague and after that,  they found themselves fighting for last 4, make the series ended at five matches.

He put things in the right order domestically and found playoffs.  The Bilbaoan surprise get them out at quarters but it was a great season. That was a difficulty for Olmos.  In the dream year 2003, there were the legendary club veterans, Victor Luengo or Jose Rodilla along side with Dejan Tomasevic, Fabricio Oberto but not this time where the team lost many players from last year.

The prominent example is Serbian Dusko Savanovic. Omar Cook, Jeremy Richardson, James Augustine and Robertas Javtokas are among other important examples. To fill the place, the team  got Nik Caner Medley(for Savanovic) Rodrigo San Miguel(guard) Victor Faverani(Brazilian center) along with the  Latvian Rihards Kuksiks, Larry Abia from youth  team and with Tiago Splitter plus Zarko Rakocevic, both played for short periods. More important, the star player Victor Claver was coming back from injury. Most of the newcomers were young and inexperinced in the highest stage.

The team managed to advance to TOP16 stage of Eurocup but the group was not that hard to be honest. The reason that Olmos was released probably where his W/L count is 8-9, the most recent results excluding the victory against one of the strongest teams of Eurocup, Gravelines.

Starting from December, the team just won 1 match which was against Gran Canaria. Of course, that kind of a form can make Valencia apart from playoffs and they did not taste that bad experince since 2006. No Paco, unfortunately not this time.

Photo: eurocupbasketball.com