FCC UAV Arad ended the 2023-2024 season with a failure in the championship final against CSM Constanța. However, the season was a good one for the Árades, who exceeded expectations and managed to defeat Sepsi in the semifinal of the National League.
Under these conditions, the club’s management decided to continue using the technician Miroslav Popov, whose contract was extended for the next season as well.
“We will be together again, because I felt positive emotions, good feed-back between me and the president, the club staff, with all the conditions in the club. I am satisfied on one side, probably the club is satisfied on the other side, so we will continue the cooperation. Hopefully we will make a new and better team for next season, we want to do the same as we did this year. It depends on which team we will make. These are tough times, it depends if we have enough money, I don’t know what will happen, but we have to be smart, as we have been this season, to create a team with potential. I am glad that we will work together again. I like the city, I like the fans in Arad, they are very important for our team. When you have such an audience it’s nice to play for them, you have motivation to play. And I, as a coach, have power and strength, we want to show our best when we play with this audience, more people come. Maybe there are many fans in Sfântu Gheorghe, but I think that in Arad there are more enthusiastic fans, they are noisy, it is a very good thing” the coach stated.
President Marcel Urban spoke in his turn about the continuity of the technician from Serbia: “He is the coach who did not lose the 1st place, but won the 2nd place. That is why we really wanted to continue with him. After how hard we started, with the bad luck of some injuries at the beginning of the season, to reach the final is still an achievement. I really appreciate the motivation of the players, who did not give up for a single moment and believed in their abilities throughout the entire championship, achieving several comebacks and beautiful victories. Here you can see the coach’s work style, for which some players came. Together we lived beautiful moments, through some surprising victories, in which we believed. This was possible after the teamwork of everyone involved, from players, technical staff, administrative staff, with the indispensable support of our sponsors, collaborators and supporters”
66-year-old Miroslav Popov took over FCC UAV last summer. He also worked in his career at Hemofarm (Serbia), Lions Vršac (Serbia), Mercede Basket Alghero (Italy), Leotar Trebinje (Bosnia-Herzegovina), CSU Alba Iulia and Phoenix Constanța (Romania) and Tianjin Ronggang (China), but he was also the coach of Serbia (1999-2005) and Romania (2015-2017).
PHOTO: FCC UAV Arad
