Rajkovic’s playing career turned out to be short and not particularly exciting: from junior age to 26 years old, he played for various clubs in North Macedonia, with Rabotnicki being the most famous of his teams.
After hanging his sneakers on a nail, Emil immediately became a coach. At first, he worked at home country, won the national championship with Feni Industries three times, and since 2014 he began to try himself abroad. Poland was his first foreign country to work in: Rajkovic coached Slask and Stal, with the latter taking bronze and silver of the domestic championship. In 2018, Emil moved to Astana, immediately took sixth place in the regular season and won the title of the VTB United League Coach of the Year, and for three years he led the team to the title of Kazakhstan champion. In 2021, the Macedonian led the Kazakhstan National Team, with which he successfully qualified for the Asian Cup.
Rajkovic started last season at Avtodor, and before the coach’s departure in March, the Saratov team was among the VTB League leaders and considered one of the favorites to win the FIBA Europe Cup.
Andrey Vatutin, President of PBC CSKA:
We had several conversations, only by video link so far, and were impressed by Emil’s basketball education, his passion and ambitions, his ability to build a team, create the chemistry necessary to win and establish contact with players of all ages and nationalities. Although his resume does not yet have experience in big clubs, still the ability to achieve results, overcoming difficulties, and obvious progress as a specialist are noticeable. One of the factors of this progress is the desire to master the Russian language perfectly, which Emil already speaks well. In addition, Rajkovic has worked for the VTB League teams over the past four seasons – which is especially important now that we will not play in the Euroleague – he knows the players, coaches, and many of the nuances of playing in the tournament. We wish Emil to quickly settle into a new place and become a co-author of new big victories for CSKA. In turn, the club will do everything possible to make the coach feel like a part of the club’s family.
Rajkovic will come to Moscow next week, we will be happy to introduce him to journalists and fans, we are planning to hold a press conference and name the coaching staff. Emil has already joined the work on the formation of the roster for the next season, which is now going in full swing.
Emil Rajkovic, CSKA head coach:
It’s a big honor but in the same time a big responsibility to be the head coach of such a glorious club with a great history like CSKA Moscow, especially approaching 100 years of the club’s existence. I am really proud to receive the invitation, and appreciate the trust of CSKA management and owners from Nornickel. Altogether we will work with great dedication so the team will be able to play modern and exciting basketball that will be interesting to our fans. At the same time we will be focused on winning every game we play and develop our players to the maximum capacity of their potential.
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