Why Did So Many Coaches In The Euro league Get Fired This Season?

The EuroLeague is a revolving door with a squeaky hinge when it comes to firing coaches. Europe's finest stayed true to their reputation as having an extremely short leash for coaches with 10 firings or resignations due to poor performance. That number doesn't just stand out, it reinforces what anyone paying attention already knows. Stability is a luxury in this league. But why is it a luxury? The EuroLeague coaching market has split into 3 overlapping realities: expectation-driven dismissals, early-season panic reactions, and structurally induced failures.

Early-Season Panic

The EuroLeague behaves like a pressure cooker with a faulty valve sometimes, much like playing high-stakes online games. The margin for error is so slim that coaching changes can happen after just two games almost as easily as with playing about 7000 games in the EuroLeague. That's what happened in the curious case of Ioannis Sfairopoulos, who was fired after three consecutive losses. The Greek coach was relieved after nearly two years at the helm of Crvena zvezda Meridianbet. Ioannis was let go despite winning four trophies and a record of 90–55.

We see this situation play out again in Turkey where Anadolu Efes fired Igor Kokoškov after a poor 5–8 EuroLeague start which culminated in a heavy 36-point loss (102–66) to Monaco. Kokoškov had signed a three-year contract with Efes in July, replacing Luca Banchi as head coach but could barely last a third of the season. The 53-year-old joined Efes after spending the past two seasons as an assistant on Quinn Snyder's staff with the Atlanta Hawks. This is a well-respected coach, whose reputation in NBA circles couldn't save him from a similar short-fused stint. This season, we saw five coaching changes in the first 13 games.

Expectation vs. Reality

If results were the only currency, none of these benches should have gone cold when they did. Yet in the EuroLeague's harsher economy, expectation is the exchange rate, and all four of these clubs found themselves insolvent despite posting records that, on paper, remained competitive. FC Barcelona's decision to let go of Joan Peñarroya after an okay 5–4 EuroLeague start reflects this dynamic. The club had Final Four dreams, so leadership felt Peñarroya was inadequate for the job despite the season being barely underway. He had guided them to the EuroLeague playoffs the previous season, barely missing the Final Four.

Ettore Messina resigned as head coach of EA7 Emporio Armani Milan after six years in charge. Despite guiding Milan through one of its most successful eras, it wasn't enough to save the legend's job after a so-so 6–6 start. At Milano, expectation mismatch didn't produce an immediate firing. It produced something more corrosive: a climate where the coach himself became the story. This is another side of the same coin. In his open letter explaining the circumstances of his departure, Messina referenced constant criticism and polarization.

AS Monaco parted ways with Vassilis Spanoulis despite sitting on the edge of playoff contention in 9th late in the season. Spanoulis was a victim of his own success. He arrived at Monaco in late November 2024 and helped lead the club to a playoff triumph over FC Barcelona in a five-game series, which guaranteed its second-ever appearance at the EuroLeague Final Four. In Abu Dhabi, Monaco fell short in the title decider. This set the standards sky high for this season. The team held a strong 15–7 record after 22 EuroLeague games, sitting near the top of the standings. However, a 1–7 run derailed its campaign, causing the team to tumble to ninth and eventually costing Spanoulis his job.

Structural Instability

If early-season panic is the spark and expectation is the fuel, then structural instability is the oxygen. It's the quiet, invisible force that turns a slow burn into something uncontrollable. In the EuroLeague, coaches are often tasked with acting as firefighters, putting out little fires behind the scenes. As stated earlier, Messina transitioned from a coaching role to a president of basketball operations to help manage such fires in Milan. Spanoulis attributed Monaco's struggles to off-court problems.

Perhaps the most telling case of structural instability was Željko Obradović's resignation from Partizan. As a nine-time EuroLeague champion, Obradović returned to Partizan in 2021, helping the team win two ABA League titles (2023 and 2025) and reach the EuroLeague playoffs in 2023, where they were one game away from the Final Four. Yet, for the first time in his glorious career, Obradović decided to call it quits prematurely, believing he couldn't turn the situation around.

Partizan entered this season carrying heavy expectations. After previous European success, there was a growing belief that the team was moving into consistent playoff contention.

However, reports surrounding his departure pointed toward deeper internal strain. There was too much roster turnover and insufficient financial resources compared to EuroLeague elite clubs. This led to a growing disconnect between what the project aspired to be and what it could sustainably support. So Obradović's resignation, taken amid internal difficulties, signaled a coach, roster, and organization all not on the same page.

Stability Is Wishful Thinking in the EuroLeague

Taken together, these three forces explain why coaching in the EuroLeague feels less like a long-term profession and more like a rotating mechanism under constant load. The result is a league where even successful coaches operate on fragile ground, never fully insulated from a single bad stretch or an ambition their club cannot sustain.