Joan Peñarroya will be the new Barça basketball coach until 2026. FC Barcelona and Peñarroya have reached an agreement for the incorporation of the Egarense coach as the new coach of the Barça bench. The Catalan joins the Club’s discipline after an extensive career in ACB teams and with the utmost enthusiasm and ambition to face the greatest challenge that he has led so far.
The new Barça coach, 55 years old, arrives from Baskonia, where he spent the 2022/23 season and the first part of the 2023/24 season. In addition to experience in international competitions such as the Basketball Champions League, the Euroocup and the Euroleague, also accumulates more than 300 games in the ACB in ten courses.
An extensive career
The 55-year-old coach from Terrassa has coached seven teams before starting his Barça adventure. After finishing his time as a player, he started on the benches of the EBA League with the CB Olesa (2006-09) and the CB Navàs (2009-10).
After this first experience he had the opportunity to train the Andorra Basketball, where he spent a handful of years (2010-2018) after competing two seasons in the LEB Plata, two in the LEB Oro and four in the ACB. He qualified Andorra to compete in the 2017 Copa del Rey and the best position in the regular phase was sixth place in the 2017/18 season.
After eight seasons in Andorra, Joan Peñarroya signed for the Manresa, the club in which he spent the most seasons as a player (eleven in three stages). He finished the 2018/19 season in a creditable eighth place.
The next chapter was with the San Pablo Burgos, where he took an important step in his coaching career. He spent two seasons in the Castilian team, with an ambitious city and club project. In the first, he qualified for the Play-off that was played during the COVID pandemic in Valencia, achieving notable triumphs such as the elimination of Real Madrid. In Burgos was where he achieved the most success as a coach, winning the Basketball Champions League and the Intercontinental Cup twice, in 2021.
Valencia and Baskonia, the latest experiences
After his good seasons in Burgos, the Valencia It was his next step as a coach. The most relevant part of his tenure as an orange player was the Eurocup semi-finals.
In the summer of 2021 he went from Valencia to Vitoria. With the Baskonia, despite playing a very offensive and quite attractive game, could not enter the 2022/23 play-off in a neck-to-neck with Zalgiris, which would end up being Barça’s rival. Despite having signed two seasons with the Vitorian team, at the end of October he was fired from it.
His past as a player
In his career as a player, Manresa stands out, the club where he grew up and with whom he played for 11 seasons (in three different stages). With the Manresans, Peñarroya was champion of the 1996 Copa del Rey. He also passed through Tenerife (1990-91), León (1997-99) and Ourense (1999-01). He ended his years as a professional in 2003, when he went from Manresa to CB Aracena-Ponts (2003-04) and Olesa (2004-05), where he retired and began his time as a coach.
