The mission of ELPA Performance Advisory Board is to help improve players’ professional lives by interpreting and sharing the newest practical, scientific and methodological information about training, recovery, rehabilitation, performance management, psychology, nutrition and any other aspect that can serve the main goal – maximising the length and success of each player’s professional career.

As an inclusive and independent group of specialists, ELPA Performance Advisory Board will openly share their experiences, studies and researches with the aim to build mutual beneficial relationships with EuroLeague and EuroCup clubs and with a wider basketball community.

The ELPA Performance Advisory Board’s newsletter is available here.

Performance Advisory Board can be contacted at

PAB MEMBERS :

Francesco Cuzzolin (Strength & Conditioning) – is the first European to become Head Strength and Conditioning Coach in the NBA (Toronto Raptors). He has worked for 15 years with two legendary European basketball teams, Benetton Treviso and Virtus Bologna, and has been the Head S&C coach of the Russian national team, and Italian national team. As a consultant, he shared his expertise with CSKA Moscow, Fenerbahce Istanbul, and the Latvian national team. He is currently teaching a Training methodology for Team Sports at the University of Udine. He has been Technogym Director of the Scientific Department, and Research and Innovation Manager. He is a founder and member of the Executive Board of the European Physical Conditioning Association (EPCA).

Julio Calleja-González (Scientific Research) – Ph.D., is a chair professor in sports training at university of the Basque Country (Spain). As an international lecturer in more than 30 countries, he is one of the most recognized specialists in sports recovery. Currently, he works for the Spanish Olympic Committee and is also the personal performance scientist of Serge Ibaka (NBA Champion, 2019). Julio wrote more than 200 scientific articles, 54 book chapters, and 7 books about training methods, recoveries, tapering, testing, training load control, and overtraining. He is a member of the European College of Sports Sciences (ECSS), and founder/member of the Executive Board of the European Physical Conditioning Association (EPCA).

Igor Jukić (Performance Management) – Ph.D., is a university professor, international lecturer, and high-performance specialist in sport. As a strength and conditioning coach, Igor worked with the Croatian national senior and youth basketball teams from 1994-2006, and with the Croatian national football team from 2014-2016. He was head of performance in the Baskonia-Alaves group. In 2011 he founded Biotrening Ltd., a company related to high performance in sport, which supports many top-level athletes and teams from around the globe. He is a founder and member of the Executive Board of the European Physical Conditioning Association (EPCA).

Mar Rovira (Sports Psychology) – is a professor in Sports Psychology at Tecnocampus-Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) and has 17 years of experience as a professional basketball player. She obtained her BA (honors) in Psychology at University of Barcelona and Masters in Sports Psychology at U.N.E.D. Madrid. As a Sports Psychologist she worked with countless sports clubs, including F.C. Barcelona. She has worked for 10 years with top-level professional athletes from basketball, MotoGP, soccer, tennis, swimming and others. She is also the founder of Themoove, a company that helps professional athletes in their transition to retirement and second career. As a consultant she is helping regional and national sports federations.

Jaime Sampaio (Sports Data Science) – Ph.D., is director of the Research Center for Sports, Health and Human Development (CIDESD), where he heads the Creative Lab and SporTech, with a focus on performance analysis in team sports and technological applications in sports. His main interests and field of expertise are performance analysis and statistics, complex and dynamical systems, cooperative learning, collective behavior, and creativity. He produced more than 230 publications in international peer-review journals and textbooks and is currently a professor with tenure at the UTAD for teaching and researching.

Sergej M. Ostojić (Sports and Clinical Nutrition) – Ph.D., received medical degree from the University of Belgrade School of Medicine and obtained MSc in Medical Sciences, Medical Specialist degree, and Ph.D. in Medical Sciences at the University of Belgrade. His postdoc and CME education include training in mitochondrial medicine (Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science), and nutrition and metabolism (Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). He is currently a full professor of Medicine at the University of Novi Sad, head of Applied Bioenergetics Lab, and adjunct professor at the University of Belgrade School of Medicine. He authored and co-authored 221 peer-reviewed articles in multidisciplinary journals, 180+ invited lectures and conference abstracts; 25 book chapters, and 14 books. He is a member of the American College of Physicians, the American Society for Nutrition, the American Physiological Society, the American College of Sports Medicine, and the Nutrition Society.

Baris Kocaoglu (Sport Traumatology) – is a professor of orthopedics and sports medicine at Acibadem University (Faculty of Medicine) in Istanbul, Turkey. He made his sports medicine fellowship at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinic, Iowa City. He gave lectures at Penn State University, Cleveland Clinic, Campbell Clinic, Stanford University, Houston Texas University, and HSS Hospital. He has 96 SCI and SCI-ex indexed publications and is the corresponding author at 76 of them. He has 10 international book chapters on the Sports injuries field and is the leading editor of multinational basketball sports injuries book with the mission of collaboration between American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and European Society of Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery & Arthroscopy.