IRAQ may have a new coach in Serbian Veselin Matic.
But he’s not exactly unfamiliar to Asian basketball, more so with Gilas Pilipinas.
The 65-year-old native of Belgrade has been coaching around the region for so long that Saturday’s do-or-die encounter between the Iraqis and the Filipinos for a spot in the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 playoffs won’t be Matic's first facing the Philippine side.
For starters, Matic, who was named Iraq coach last March during the qualifiers, is a close friend of former Smart-Gilas Pilipinas coach Rajko Toroman, making him accustomed to Philippine basketball.
He actually took over the coaching job at Iran when Toroman left the team in 2009 to lay the foundation of the Smart-Gilas program.
Inheriting a team fresh from a stint in the 2008 Beijing Olympics led by Hamed Haddadi and Samad Nikkhah Bahrami, Matic had a lot of success at the helm.
He led Team Melli to a three-peat in the Jones Cup from 2009 to 2011, guided the Iranians to gold in the FIBA Asia Cup 2009 to earn an outright spot in the FIBA World Cup 2010, and steered them to a bronze medal finish in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.
During that stretch, Matic had the Philippines’ number in head-to-head clashes with Iran.
Team Melli defeated the Filipinos in the 2009 Jones Cup (85-60) and later turned them back in the Asia Cup that same year, 88-78, as coach Yeng Guiao called the shots for the national team back then.
In the 2010 Jones Cup, the Iranians again prevailed over Smart-Gilas coached by Toroman, 81-68, then in the Guangzhou Asiad, 65-48.
But in the 2011 Jones Cup, the Philippines finally scored payback against Matic, as it beat Team Melli, 73-59. Iran, though, wasted no time exacting revenge in the semifinals, 78-59, on the way to retaining gold.
Gilas meets Matic, again
Come 2015, Matic moved to Lebanon, and they got overwhelmed by Gilas in the quarterfinals of the FIBA Asia Championship in Changsha, China, 82-70. The Cedars already had the likes of Jean Abd El Nour, Amir Saoud, Ali Haidar, and a 20-year-old Wael Arakji then.
Tab Baldwin was the man at the helm for the Philippines during those days.
A decade later, Gilas crosses path with the Serbian coach anew, as the Filipinos look to carry the momentum from the last time it went up against a team handled by Matic.
Matic was with India prior to taking his act to Iraq. He was also a former national coach of Syria and handled club teams in Libya, Lebanon, and Poland. As a player, he once represented the Yugoslavian national team.
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