Bowing down to the legends: Aljoša Žorga

One of the best Cedevita Olimpija players of all time and a member of the Temple of Slovenian Sports Heroes, Aljoša Žorga, celebrates his 74^rd birthday on Thursday.

The very fact that Aljoša Žorga can be introduced at the very beginning as one of the members of the once best national team in the world, which won the World Championships in 1970 in Ljubljana, is enough to say how big a basketball player and man he is. Žorga made his first basketball steps at the Ljubljana club, and in his younger years the path also took him to the city rivals of Ilirija. But Olimpija was a club in which the 201 cm tall Ljubljana native, who comes from Trnovo, spent almost his entire career.

Žorga was introduced to the basketball by none other than Boris Kristančič, who left an indelible mark on Slovenian and Ljubljana basketball. At the age of seven, Žorga made his first basketball steps, and when he was spotted on one of the outdoor courts, Kristancic immediately referred him to Olimpija’s youth training. At first, Žorga was a member of the Yugoslav youth team, in 1965 the team was led by the legendary Ranko Zeravica, and only five years later he was part of a team that raised the whole of Yugoslavia and the world basketball public to their feet.

He was a member of the Yugoslav national team between 1967 and 1971, during which time he made 80 appearances and packed three medals in his showcases.

It was Žorga and Ivo Daneu who became the first Slovenian Olympic medalist in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. The final match was from Yugoslavia, with Kresimir Cosic, Radivoj Korac, Petar Skansi, Damir Solman, Trajko Rajkovic and Nikola Plecas among them, with a 65:50 better than the national team of the United States. Certainly this only further motivated the Yugoslav national team, which won the World Champion title for the first time in its history at the domestic World Championships held in Sarajevo, Split, Karlovac, Skopje and Ljubljana two years later. Žorga added silver to his medal collection a year later, in 1971, from the European Championships held in West Germany. With all the success of the Yugoslav national team jersey, Zeravica sat on the bench of Yugoslavia as the head coach.

Aljoša Žorga spent 11 seasons at the Ljubljana club, and with the Dragons he achieved nine major successes. Interestingly, in 1974 he also joined the coaching waters, and for four months worked in Celje, where, among other things, he transferred his basketball skills to Zmago Sagadin, later one of the best Slovenian basketball coaches of all time.

In 1977, when not yet 30 years old, he put a basketball shoe in a corner and ventured into other waters. He also ran Maximarket in Ljubljana’s Emona, and today we can see him at many home games of the green-orange band.