Álex Mumbrú (born in Barcelona, 1979) knows all too well that a coach’s life can take unexpected turns. After a difficult stint with Valencia Basket, where he was dismissed before the end of the 2023-24 season despite having another year on his contract, he entered a brief pause in a coaching career that began in Bilbao. There, he went from being team captain (nine seasons, with his number 15 retired) to becoming head coach in 2018. In 2022, he moved to Valencia… and then, in a move few saw coming just over a year ago, he took the helm of Germany, the reigning world champions in basketball.
The challenge was monumental. Gordon Herbert had led Germany to the world title in 2023 and to the semifinals (ultimately without a medal) at Paris 2024. His departure to take over Bayern Munich, part of a coaching shuffle that sent Pablo Laso to Baskonia, left a vacancy. The German federation sought a young coach full of energy, and Mumbrú’s pedigree—rooted in Spain’s immense winning culture in recent decades—appealed to them, as did his demeanor during negotiations. And the outcome has been spectacular: Mumbrú is now European champion, coaching a team that rules both the world and the continent, much like Spain did in 2022. Even FIBA, after the game, linked Spain’s winning culture to the new champion’s coach: “And in the end… somehow, some way, Spain still won.”
The Barcelona native accomplished this feat despite enormous personal challenges: he was hospitalized with acute pancreatitis the day before the EuroBasket began and couldn’t sit on the bench until the second phase. After the round-of-16 victory over Portugal, he stepped back, allowing his assistants—Serbian Alan Ibrahimagic and fellow Spaniard Alberto Medina—to lead the team while he remained in a secondary role, weakened by the ill-timed illness.
But now he has his senior continental gold as a coach, adding to his extraordinary playing career with the Spanish national team: world champion in 2006, European champion in 2009, Olympic silver in Beijing 2008, and two more EuroBasket medals in 2007 and 2013. He is the first Spanish coach to win the senior men’s European Championship. Spain’s four previous golds were all under Sergio Scariolo (2009, 2011, 2015, and 2022), while in women’s EuroBasket, Manuel Coloma and Lucas Mondelo achieved the feat. But Mumbrú leaves EuroBasket 2025 with another milestone: he is only the third person to win the EuroBasket as both a player and a coach, joining Lithuanian Feliksas Kriauciunas (1937 and 1939) and Greek Panagiotis Giannakis (1987 and 2005).
EuroBasket 2025 | Final
A Germany for the history books
EuroBasket | Turkey 83 – Germany 88
Schröder, an MVP at the pinnacle of world and European basketball