How much we can expect from handball representation of Serbia at the European Championship in Croatia and where we are at this moment, analyzed former strategist of the Red Star Igor Butulija.
– Honestly to be, I do not expect anything, we should cross into Split and what is. It’s not easy to select Jovica Cvetkovic, and I’m very sorry for the player. I went to visit them and give them support, because I was seven, eight at the most important moment after them, and I’m glad that they became important screws in our national team. It’s a pleasure for me to remember, turn around and say, „When we worked with you as juniors, we thought what, bre, this, but when we went to big clubs, we realized how much work meant to us.“ It is a greater pleasure for me than I do not know which trophy I have won. This is the only thing that remains for us, as long as it takes them to create a new generation, because they are great guys and handball players, and I want them with all my heart to try something to make, „Butuli told Blicksport.
The first match with Croatia?
– My generation played the first match with Croatia on the EP in 1996 after the sanctions, when we took the bronze, then we beat them. It was a collision between two large generations, on the one hand, Cavar, Puc, Saračević, Gudelj, Kljajić, Smajlagić, and with our Jovanović, Perić, Stojanović, Šrkbić, Peruničić, I … Today it’s different, it’s just a sport and needs so be it. What I know is that our guys will not be scared in Split for a moment and I believe they will play a good game, and honestly, most importantly, we would be able to get into the second round and whatever happens in that match, passage to the next round would be a great success. These players did not say last, they have much to offer, and they also bring us medals. I believe in them. It will be hard at this competition; there are a thousand factors for why this is so. I urge everyone to unite, not that from the beginning of the demolition of Cvetkovic and the boys, it is the easiest and most cowardly. I order them to leave private things for private lives, problems, this is the representation of Serbia, and we all have to keep it and help as much as we can in our power.
You came out of handball almost five years ago. Why?
– I came out because I saw that the handball would be gone after a few years, going in the wrong direction, which I pointed out at that time. Then everyone was silent, and today many people call me to tell me that I was right and that I have to go back to help. What I was right about did not matter to me because the handball fell to the low branches.
What is that which you pointed out?
– We do not have a system and there is no one to place it, because many who can help ousted to be led by interest and incompetent, who have never been anything in this sport. We do not have real handball workers, people who will lead handball in the way we are headed, we have no profession, we do not have a system, who will put it, how to select it, and by what criterion we train our children to be top-level players someday
Source Blic sport
