We are witnessing the crisis of the handball profession in Croatia, which is often talked about by Lino Červar. We are witnesses that the players of yesterday get coaching opportunities that they may not have grown up with and that we lose them unnecessarily, even if in the future they could do the job. Good intentions are not in question, but the results show that the path must be different.
The man who created the handball profession is Vlado Stenzel, the first Olympic winner in 1972 in Munich, the man who took Germany to the first world title in 1978. If we are talking about the Yugoslav school, then the Government is an inseparable part of that. Today, he is a pensioner who lives in the peace of the Skradin hinterland, but is always ready to discuss handball. Nothing still leaves him indifferent and says:
– We have a real problem and I certainly want to help as a man who gave his whole life to handball. I’m not indifferent, even though I’m just a big handball fan today. I can’t look at all those problems indifferently, Zagreb is my city where I was born, Medveščak is a part of history, Zagreb is a club that has won the primacy in Europe and I want it to stay that way.
He studied with Bojan Stranić
Coaches are definitely an issue?
– First, I would not talk about current names in this story, nor would I want it to turn out to salt someone’s mind, but I just want to help us understand where we are wrong and make it easier and better for everyone together. Mirko Novosel said one great sentence about coaches that reads „there are no bad coaches, there are only those who do not want to learn“. That is the attitude of a man who has won great medals. Everything is summarized there. A coach who thinks he will teach others has no chance. Only a coach who is willing to learn, especially from the successful, can progress.
So we don’t really have any?
– I said at the beginning, I would not enter into that kind of discussion, whoever wants to understand, will understand. I just want to help because I think I can.
How do you learn?
– At the age of 27, I became the first professional coach in the former Yugoslavia. The first thing I did – I went to Bojan Stranić to ask about jumping exercises. I later upgraded it with East German exercises that are the best ever, and the example of Joachim Deckarm still spins as perfect today when we talk about it. For example, I saw a lot of good things from Jeftushenko, I saw from Snoj what a great manager means, the cunning Picok Seles had a perfect example of situational handball with Bjelovar before he broke Gummersbach … I cooperated with athletic coaches in terms of endurance, I went to faculty with professor Kosta Momirović who gave me his associate prof. Nikola Sabioncel, whom I had at the club as a psychologist at the time, which was very unusual at the time. Psychology must be studied, psychology is not treated by training in the gym and fitness, and I would say that prof. Momirovic was a key man in my development as a handball coach. And with all that, we trained. With situational training which is a forgotten thing today, and without which it cannot. When you lose +6 in five minutes, it’s a matter of situational training, which teaches the team’s reaction to the situation, not the gym and nonsense. I remember the training match when only one Bojić in the team was allowed to shoot at me for 30 minutes, the other was not, so that I could get that Bojić for the match. And I got it, even though it was weird for people watching it. When you lose 10 points it’s chaos in the team because you’re not ready for some things.
Do we have our own, Croatian school?
– School is learning, I think we are too full of ourselves and we talk as if we are the smartest and the best. We say that the Spanish coaches are not good, that they have no idea, that the Icelanders are not good, but the facts and the results speak differently. From anyone who is currently better than you, you must be willing to learn and take the best. ignoring is jealousy. Well, those Spaniards or Icelanders are not so much appreciated by chance, they are not so much on the stage by chance and they do not show by chance what they have learned in the system they created. This is no longer just about handball but also about other sports. Who we are that we can and must deny, those are the facts. Our national problem is that we think we know everything best.
Both psychology and communication play a role here?
– Certainly, because it is important to create a compact whole. You have to recognize things, make decisions, be ready to deal with it. I had a case in Germany with Schmidt from Gummersbach who was irreplaceable, and I Hellenized him and many did not like that, but we were world champions. The coach has to follow everything, he has to know how his player breathes, every player.
Is there a lot of superficiality with coaches today?
– Because they are not committed to it as much as necessary. It is not enough to put on a tracksuit and come to training, you have to have a vision of what you are going to do, how you are going to do it.
He pointed out another problem …
– I see three or four coaches on the benches, I see five directors in the clubs, and the people say „a hundred midwives, a fat child“. What is it for? Well, one is too much, and how many. I have not seen anyone responsible for all of them. You have to be responsible in order to be able to correct mistakes, because there is no one who does not make mistakes. The coach must be independent in every way, that is the basic premise of a good job. I worked alone, I didn’t even have an assistant coach at all. I led both juniors and cadets, I also did fitness and trained goalkeepers because it was the only way to have insight into the condition. In a secret way, I made world champions out of 20-year-olds in Germany. I’m not saying that others didn’t work, but the coach always has to be inside, so what will you do only with seniors, so it’s for such a job … The Germans had one great thing by motivating club coaches for each member of the national team at that time with 500 DEM.
The ego is a big problem
We got the money, and that’s the problem with us …
– I know, but let’s say I think that Zagreb, which has a younger team, needs an experienced coach. I know that the actors are in their film, I see that they are second generation, but I think that in general we should sign contracts with 60 percent fixed and 40 percent motivational part, to motivate the actors properly, to start thinking among themselves was the best. This way, they sometimes act like „we came to work, we need a salary“, and they don’t want to see what they did for that. We have to adapt that to our realities. They are not a lake, nor great, but we have to do something.
How much is the ego problem?
– Big, it is a big mistake, they have to work on themselves, learn, the fact that they were great as players does not mean that they know everything, they are only beginners in this business, only when they will accept the power further. It doesn’t go any other way, for sure.
Do we have a coach today?
– We have good ones, but I said I won’t talk about names, because I don’t want anyone to misunderstand me in any way. I just see that we are in trouble and I feel that we all need help. Even through the media. No one is infallible, and the Germans were wrong when they chose Prokop, so they corrected themselves, because a coach does not become only in school and through books, to be used, he must know what you did wrong.
And the conclusion?
– Coaches must develop by learning in every way. Whoever thinks that he will just come and teach others, has no chance. Old folk say, even if it sounds harsh, a smart person can learn from a fool, but a fool can never learn from a smart person.
Vlado drew a nice memory from the past, about how they once taught Europeans handball …
– The Russians asked me to see how we work. They brought in 60 coaches and spectators, and then they became part of history. I went to Odense, Denmark, to make a training film that still exists in the Danish federation today. They paid dearly for it, but they have a lot of things left, I see that the diagonals on the wings are a thing they do great.
MY COACHES I AM PROUD OF. VINKO KANDIJA WAS THE MOST SPECIAL
Vlado Stenzel has raised many generations of top coaches. He is proud of their realization today.
– I look at coaches by what they have done, how they behave and relate to work.
Can you at least superficially Zagreb about that part of the past?
– You always leave home, so there are my Medveščak people Velimir Kljaić, Josip Milković, Zdenko Zorko, Josip Šojat, Zdravko Zovko, Sead Hasanefendić, Goran Perkovac, Nenad Kljaić …
A little wider …
– Abas Arslanagić, Hrvoje Horvat, Branislav Pokrajac, Zoran Tuta Živković, these are the coaching names that marked Yugoslav handball.
One will stand out in particular.
– Vinko Kandija was probably the best of all in my career, because he had an incredible will to work and study. He made handball from scratch in Trogir. He also created Hypo, Radnicki and Buducnost, only an incredible worker could do that, and I am proud of our cooperation.
In Germany, where Stenzela was considered a „handball wizard“, a big trace remained.
– Heiner Brand, after great playing careers, grew into a coach who ascended the world throne. He is the biggest name in German handball as a whole. Arno Ehret is a great coach, the current Goppingen coach is Hartmut Maierhoffer.
PROFESSORS ARE NOT PROFESSIONAL ENOUGH FOR SPECIFIC HANDBALL CONDITION, SO PLAYERS INJURED EVEN AT SLEEP
There is one more thing that Stenzel wanted to emphasize in particular.
– Who are the teachers of future coaches for us today, do we have enough of them, if we have, do we appreciate what they can help in that story? One must learn from a practitioner, not a theorist, and in order to become a coach one must combine both talent and knowledge. In my opinion, the basic problem of the whole story is not training a specific handball condition, and that is a condition that is not solved by the gym, fitness, training taken out of the handball game. It’s training through play, and we play too little. It takes a lot of games to win that, and we play a little. Well you have to lift the team if it fell in some way, not go from case to case. Specific handball fitness is a term that has been lost. Well, Zagreb lost in the SEHA league because of Vardar just because of that. To bring this closer to everyone, I will say that ballet is never trained in the gym, because if it were like that we would never be able to walk on our toes, spin and jump high. The gym is done twice a week throughout the season, three times in preparation and targeted. Each sport has its own specific handball condition. And today, fitness coaches have taken over everything, handball coaches have left everything to professors who are professional, but not enough for handball in the vast majority of cases. Those who do not know handball cannot study specific and other conditions on their own. And that’s why we have injuries like never before, that’s why our players get injured in games and even at bedtime.
