The hit of the 2021 World Cup is Russia. „Sleeping bear“, as the selector Velimir Petković called him in a conversation with Žiko Bogdanović for the seventh issue of the magazine of the Association of Coaches of the Serbian Handball Federation „40 × 20“, was the main topic of the interview. The man who, after 30 years of work in Germany, changed his address and went to where the vast majority of foreign coaches fail, „Mother Russia“, gave an interesting view of everything he did after taking up his new position…
In thinking about what I will do and how to do it after leaving Berlin, I received invitations from Meshkov from Brest, Melsungen and the Russian national team. I was the closest to Melsungen, it is my handball country and speaking area, but they offered cooperation for only a year. I automatically refused. I also had a conversation with Meshkov, but in that situation, the most interesting to me was that „sleeping bear“, the Russian national team, which was always a topic at seminars and in long night conversations that we coaches have during our gatherings. What is happening in Russia, why did handball fail, the one since we learned a lot, waiting for each new competition to see something new? Why is it gone, why is it going out? I contacted many of my Russian friends, interviewed them, asking for their opinion on this phenomenon. These are all former top players, medal winners, they had good European coaches. I got honest answers from everyone. I wondered why there was such a difference between men’s and women’s handball. And I realized that it was a European story. If you have good patrons, it doesn’t matter if it’s men’s or women’s handball, you’re making progress. They invested in Zvezda, Rostov, Lada. For me, Trefilov is one of the best coaches in the world, a nice man, full of humor. I respect him very much, and when I say the best, I don’t add „in women’s handball“. He told me that I would never learn Russian until I went to him and drank a bottle of vodka. I haven’t had a chance yet, but I’m learning the language regularly. My work at CSKA also helps me now, a dozen words remain every day, ours is not so different. They told me to speak Serbian with mistakes and that is Russian. Most of my Russian friends told me that the problem with handball there is the coaches. That intrigued me, what does that mean, because I remember Maksimov, Jeftushenko, Spartak Mironovic, Trefilov and others. Then I kept asking the same question here. There was no money in men’s handball. The coaches dedicated themselves to things outside of handball because they had to feed their families. That is one version of why handball has stagnated.
Lack of money implies poor quality in the league there…
The other day when we beat NEXE with 12 goals difference, journalists asked me what is the difference between European and Russian handball? It’s huge. We also play in the Russian league and that cannot be compared to what I had in Germany. I could play that now, it goes on foot, no one runs, there is no thinking in the game, there is nothing. Whether CSKA can win the Europa League was another question. I said „yes, but in 4-5 years“. There is a huge difference, I am disappointed with the quality. My wife also watches the matches of the Russian league and says „Friday, it’s a disaster, as if it’s the third German league“. And it really is. My first game on the CSKA bench started with a series of 9: 2 in the opening nine minutes. After nine minutes, all my players asked for a change. All but one, and they have all the conditions, fitness trainer, head, assistant coach. I work a lot with them. I have located the problem and I am trying to adopt the newspaper.
For many years, the Russian national team functioned as a „club-national team“ in the Chekhov Bears…
Trefilov said that it will not be easy to make a result with this national team. We should work with the national team as with a club. My first step was to go to Chekhov and have coffee with Vladimir Maksimov. He accepted my hoops, even though they answered me and said they would stab me in the back. I said „No, that’s my respect for everything he did and gave to handball.“ He gave a lot. There is still work according to the same system from 20 years ago, but two decades ago there were a lot of centers like Krasnodar, Astrakhan, Volgograd. There were more quality players. Today, Russian handball is facing unpreparedness and misunderstanding of modern handball.
YOU HAVE TO ADAPT TO THE NEW TIME
You are not the first to try to make a breakthrough in Russian handball when it comes to foreigners. Mostly these attempts ended in failure. Did you understand their mentality and the way they work?
The first man of Berlin, Bob Hanning, told me that he had never met a man with such empathy and the ability to bind people before in my life. For three months, I toured cities, centers, met people in Russia. I had great help from the legends Andrei Lavrov and Sergei Budanov, who were open and told me many things about the Russians. I have in the Vinogradov club, who will make a great career. I came to training with Kuleshov, who was before me at CSKA, and he doesn’t play for two goals, he is the 14th player, he doesn’t train, he doesn’t talk to anyone. I invite him to the national team, the boy laughs for the first time in training. Did I break the mentality? One German coach, Jung Andreas, who made Kaufman and Heinefeter, said that the biggest problem for older coaches is to adapt to young players. I did it. Well, I can’t work the way I did in Banja Luka 30 years ago or the first 5-6 years in Veclar and now at this time in the same way. It can’t be the same. You keep your system, your school, but you have to adjust your relationship with people and communication. Players today know everything, they have no more secrets, you can’t fake them and you have to be honest.
RUSSIA OTHER DISCIPLINE
Did the Russians keep any segment that could bring them back to the top?
It can be done, they have a discipline that cannot disappear so quickly. It is not true that the authority of the coach has been lost. Fokin, Vinogradov, Atman, all come from Volgograd. The boys say that they never laughed at the training and that the coach shouted from the first to the last second. He never stood with rigor, but he made players out of them. That is how authority was created. And now, how to make them satisfied, and get the most out of it, is the art of me and younger coaches. That’s why I took a younger coach with me, to go around Europe, to study and watch. The Russians are a pool that always gives something new. Lavrov is raising Stavropol, work has begun in the centers. I talked to the president of the Federation that, as we used to, we pay teachers by schools. We used to give 100 marks to physical education professors, and then they pushed handball as a primary sport. The competition is great, basketball and volleyball are offered, you don’t have that many people coming to handball anymore.
The President of the Federation, Sergei Shishkarev, is the richest man in the world of handball, a man on the Forbes list of multi-millionaires. What is his motive for investing in handball and what does he want from you?
The man sent a plane to pick me up when we played with Ukraine, then you can recognize what to expect if I move handball forward, at least a little bit. He is a handball fan, he has a lot of handball friends. The Minister of Defense and the President of CSKA is one of them and he wants to give him pleasure through investing in handball. He tried to return handball to Moscow through Spartak, but as soon as he changed his name, everything was different. He wants one great pleasure to make his friend, and in addition he fell in love with handball. I was sick for 10 days, he sent doctors to follow me every day. After the victory over Nexe, he sent me the message „You must never be sick again.“ We should all be happy with such people in handball – said, among other things, Velimir Petković.
TEXT DOWNLOADED FROM THE BALKAN HANDBALL
