The German-French forward has taken many steps forward since joining the Spanish club
Mathieu Grujicic only needed 5 minutes to decide to join Barcelona
Article
6 Mins read
As far as European basketball clubs go, FC Barcelona is one of the best on the continent. So it should be no surprise that Mathieu Grujicic jumped at the chance to leave Germany and join the Spanish powerhouse. And now he helped the club’s U18 team finish first at the Adidas NextGen EuroLeague Ulm, being named winner of the Most Valuable Player award.
Grujicic tallied 22 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal drew 8 fouls for a performance index rating of 20 in Barcelona’s 91-89 win over U18 Zalgiris Kaunas in the first-place game. For the tournament, Grujicic averaged 18.5 points on 47.4% shooting from the outside, 2.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 2.2 steals in collecting a PIR of 19.8.
“I couldn't have done it without my teammates. I think I stepped it up in the second half against Zalgiris and we kept working,” said Grujicic, who finished the tournament third in scoring and fifth in PIR.
Barcelona head coach Carlos Marin praised the player he sees as one of his leaders.
“He’s able to produce in a lot of ways. He can shoot threes off the dribble, off screens, one-on-one situations, he can share the ball, he can create assists. He has really improved his defense a lot too. It’s great to have him,” said the coach, who is spending his second season with the versatile wing.
Marin made the jump from Barcelona youth assistant to head coach just as Grujicic had come to the club. Grujicic was born in Arles, France - located between Montpellier and Marseille in the south of the country. His father is Serbian and mother is French and they moved to Berlin in 2012 because his mother was working in the French embassy in the German capital.
Grujicic’s first NextGen experience came in 2022-23 with U18 ALBA Berlin in Munich. Later that season, Grujicic helped ALBA win the German U16 JBBL league title with 52 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 7 steals in 46 minutes of a 93-85 double-OT victory over Eintracht Frankfurt / Fraport Skyliners in the Final to take home Final Four MVP.
In the summer, Grujicic averaged 14.9 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.4 steals in helping Germany finish fifth at the FIBA U16 EuroBasket 2023 to help the country qualify for the FIBA U17 World Cup for the first time.
"Barcelona is without a doubt the biggest club in Spain and probably in Europe. So for me, it wasn't a hard decision at all."
Then in September 2023, it was time to decide on his future.
“When I found out I had the opportunity to go to Barca, I had 24 hours to think about it. And I remember exactly that after five minutes, I called and I said, 'No, for me, there's nothing to think about.' Because that's something that I've always wanted to do: play in Spain, play at one of the big clubs in Spain. And Barcelona is without a doubt the biggest club in Spain and probably in Europe. So for me, it wasn't a hard decision at all,” Grujicic recalled.
Since moving to Spain, Grujicic feels he has progressed both on and off the court.
“I really think I developed as a player, but also as a human. I perfected an additional language. I met so many new friends and new people that now I can call my family,” said Grujicic, who speaks fluent French, German, English and Spanish and added: “My Serbo-Croat can get a little better.”
Grujicic then last season helped Barcelona win the NextGen Belgrade qualifying tournament while averaging 15.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists. The team returned to the NextGen Finals in Berlin and opened the tournament with an emphatic 118-46 win over ALBA with Grujicic picking up 8 points against his former team.
In the second game, Barcelona wasted a 14-point lead and ended up losing 102-98 to U18 Overtime Elite. And then Grujicic and co. could not stop Nolan Traore in the third game as the U18 CFBB INSEP Paris star scored a NextGen Finals record 45 points to go with 6 rebounds and 9 assists for an index rating of 50 in INSEP’s 101-96 victory.
This season, Grujicic is one of the main leaders of Barcelona’s second team in the fourth division with 14.0 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists. And he helped Barcelona show why it was considered one of the favorites in Ulm.
“We came here to win this thing, not just to participate. And in the end, we did it. We knew it wasn't going to be an easy game, there aren’t any easy games. Every game is difficult. But we stuck to our game plan,” he said.
Now Grujicic is looking forward to his first trip to Abu Dhabi where he knows the challenge will be even greater at the NextGen Finals.
“These Finals are always tough to really have a favorite. There are no bad teams, they're all the best teams in Europe. So I wouldn't really call us a favorite. I would call us one of the favorites,” he said.
Barcelona has been waiting for some time to finally hoist its second NextGen EuroLeague trophy - with the only one in club history coming in 2016.
“That would be amazing, man. I would be so happy if I could make it happen for my teammates, for the coaches. That would be an amazing accomplishment for our head coach. In his second year already, two Finals appearances and one championship. We're just trying to make him proud, the whole staff. So yeah, it would mean a lot.”
And it would be another confirmation of why it was an easy decision to move to Barcelona back in 2023.