Building a big project

In the first part of a big interview, Igor Jovicevic talked about progress of the team and own transformation during three months of work, specified key games of the autumn and explained some tactical move, and also shared his opinion on why young footballers should play at least 100 matches in the UPL.

– Igor, impressive playing of Shakhtar in the first half of the season is associated with your name, appearance of new players and new performers. We can say that the footballers and the coaching staff got this opportunity as a result of great changes in the country related to the war. How do you feel about this?
– These are the life moments. You cannot control some of them, and I see this situation in such a way that you have to be ready for every challenge. You prepare, learn, improve throughout your life, but you don’t expect anything in return. You shouldn’t wait for anything because it is your work and inner responsibility to yourself. And when this moment comes you will catch it. And then you have to meet the requirements set by yourself. We are talking about the conditions no individual can control. I see it like this: if there was no such situation, I would not be in Shakhtar now. This is not demagoguery or hiding of the truth, it is a pure fact. However, even after getting this chance, if it were not for previous work, self-improvement and thinking about football 24 hours a day, I wouldn't be able to match a club like Shakhtar Donetsk. This is the answer. I do not run away from such thoughts that all this could not have happened now. Maybe if I continued to work on myself, eventually this chance would come, but in a year, two or three. Shakhtar had an excellent coach making his own project. I also worked very successfully with the previous club. This work led me to the fact that I got a chance at the highest level. This is fate, and sometimes God tests your abilities. I work and do not expect anything for it. At the moment, I am happy with the situation that has developed, but this is only the beginning because the requirements are increasing. Demands of the fans, management and ourselves. We've tested our level and we cannot go any lower because a less than perfect level won't be enough anymore.

– You said the following phrase to the team at one of the first training sessions: "Respect the pass, we live from the pass." Is this your football philosophy?
– There are many factors affecting the result. There are things happen on the field, but even more important are the things happen off the field: in hotel, dining-room, bus. I think that a number of factors have to be gathered by the players, coaches and management, everyone has to be rowing in the same direction. There is no result without unity, there is no result without a good atmosphere in the dressing room, it is the foundation. I am absolutely sure that as I enjoy life at home with my wife and children, I go out to training every day with the same emotions. Everyone says that I am a motivator asking who motivates me? My family does. However, these are external factors, and the average fan might ask how do they apply to the team? But everyone comes to the team with their own emotions. I talked about the fact that the factors affecting things happen on the football field are outside of it. And tactics can be decisive on a football field with good emotions, and tactics are determined by technique. So that's why you should value and respect the pass. After all, you pass to get to the goal, you pass to control the game, to dictate the pace, to take the initiative and to be the protagonist on the pitch. I think with a pass you have more resources in comparison with a situation when you just defend.

– And what do you mean by the concept of a "protagonist" in this case?
– A protagonist is a player or team seeking the game initiative on the field. I don't want to come on and watch the other team do their job. I have my own goals and I will do everything to fulfil them or for the players to fulfil the tasks of the coach and the coaching staff. Put the moment in your head, in your hands, in your feet and take the initiative, this is what it means to be a protagonist. This is a demand to you because of what is happening on the field. You don't have to be a passive fan watching your opponents achieve their goals. The match ends and passes you by. To be a protagonist is to be an initiator, to be active in the game.

– The first match against Metalist 1925 was played in Kyiv on August 23. The last match of the autumn part of the season was played against Vorskla on November 23. How did the team change during three months?
– I think you agree that this is a young, new team and a new project. It is just the beginning. Extreme conditions, where the team and each footballer sometimes find themselves, test what material you are made of. I have already said in a previous interview: maybe sometimes fate gives you a gift for something you did somewhere in the past. We got the Champions League thanks to the work of Roberto De Zerbi and his team. However, if we didn't have the quality, the unity, the energy of the management, the coaching staff, the fans, the staff and the whole team, we wouldn't have been able to face the challenges before us. We got to know each other every day, and every day was like a year or half a year. We had to get to know each other and learn quickly, because there was no time. We stepped it up with every match. The first game with Metalist 1925 was very difficult: it was the league opening, we didn’t know yet how we are going to play. One thing is preparation at the training camp, another thing is the stressful situation in the championship and how we will react to it. Of course, we were the favourites and if we had played on another day we might have won. However, you have to show that you are the best on that particular day. Favourites do not always win in football, but we knew what is waiting for us ahead. Playing with the status of the favourite, the status of the club and the expectations of the fans is not so easy for a young footballer who was on loan in other club a few months ago, where grabbing one point was already a success. It is a completely different mental stability here. We knew we couldn't lose points because Shakhtar are always Shakhtar. And no one will ask you about 20-year-old Sudakov, Bondarenko, Ocheretko playing. No one is interested in this, because Shakhtar are playing and we have to live with it. And if you are not ready for this, then you will fall psychologically unable to withstand the stress. We had to find the energy to show the world that we deserve to play in the Champions League. I said that this Champions League is not a marathon, but a sprint. And we showed in a six-game sprint where we can be in two or three years, not where we are now. We believe in ourselves, but these six games gave us the right to believe in ourselves and the fans to believe in us that we can be a good team that will fight for the highest goals. But the most important thing is the championship because it is already a marathon of 30 matches where you have to show steadiness, stability, be able to win and withstand stress. It is one thing to play against Metalist, another one is to face Real Madrid. It is completely different emotion. I think important thing is the training process and the working ethics that the senior players show in particular. Our demands aimed, first of all, at the elders who have already been through everything and won everything. Stepanenko, Kryvtsov and others went through everything and won everything that could be won with Shakhtar. Now they help us, they know exactly the way and what factors are required to show the kind of football that they showed before. We are still building a project and we want to win, so now I am asking young footballers to become leaders. Mudryk is now like those Brazilians who were before, Sudakov, as well as Bondarenko and Trubin, show international standard. At the same time, they are Ukrainians, and this is a great thrill for the mentor who trains them. I think that Ukrainian football have a great future.

– So, can it be said that during these three months the young players became the leaders of Shakhtar to some extent?
– From the first day, I asked young guys to take all the responsibility on the football field. I am not a strict or authoritarian coach. I try to convince the footballers that in some situations we will have more chances to succeed. They should feel where the line is between a footballer and a coach through a dialog. If a player crosses this line, he is not a smart footballer and cannot be here. Coach's smile is not a sign of weakness. Smile, good mood, drinking coffee with a footballer are the best ways to get the most out of a player. Then, if you shout at a footballer on the field, he will know that it is in a good way because he knows you. This synergy is very important, and from the first day in Rotterdam I asked the players to just accept the situation as it is, not to run away hiding behind the fact that there are no international players. No, now you are Shakhtar. Of course, you won't change anything right away, but a day or two, one or two matches, analysis, working on mistakes, defeats, we got screwed somewhere and are sad, we beat our opportunities, we meet with the best teams, all this makes us stronger and helps them gaining confidence. Eventually, they take responsibility for themselves, and when you look at Sudakov now, you say that he cannot be 20 years old.

– How did Igor Jovicevic change during these three months?
– You are changed by football. I think football makes me happy and I have a great privilege in that. God gave us a certain talent, so we need to improve ourselves and make the best version of ourselves. Thinking that you are already successful is the first step to failure. And I always tell footballers about it. Every day I have fear, but not the kind of fear that blocks, but the kind that motivates and makes it clear that we are still moving towards the status of a top team. There is a long distance to Klopp, Mourinho, Guardiola, those who win everything. There is a distance and a vacuum from where I am now to the top where I want to be. This vacuum is my crazy energy and motivation to get better. I want to transfer this motivation and emotion to footballers who also want to win trophies. We are just hungry. However, you can only show where you want to be for three or four months, both in the Champions League and in the championship. Perhaps, we showed football that I have not yet played in my career excluding the last three rounds because the fatigue and psychological burden had already accumulated.

– Did you also gain a lot of experience and take something for yourself as a coach during six matches of the Champions League?
– You face situations that you may not have been in before when playing against the best. You have to respond to the coach's tactical changes, their formation, the level and quality of the footballers playing against you. When you play against famous footballer who has won everything, there is a high probability of losing this single combat because tactically, technically, psychologically, he completely controls the situation. What they went through, we are going through only now, and there are many different situations along the way and defeats as well. We have to take more from defeats than we do from wins. Sometimes after emotional win, you close your eyes and blindly go forward thinking that you are the best. Then you win by inertia, and then you lose, but you take nothing from the defeat. You can take a lot from defeat. For me personally, these six matches in the Champions League became a master class that improved me. Games against Carlo Ancelotti, especially the game against Marco Rose, which showed how much one coach can change a team, not only tactically, but when the team believe in the model of play proposed by the coach. First of all, a coach should be a person. We are people. I don't want to put myself first in terms of authority: I am a coach and I demand to strictly follow what I say so to speak. No, that's not the case with me because I offer footballers different options, and they choose for themselves. It's like in the tactical scheme: for example, the first and second zones at the beginning of the attack – here everything should be roughly according to my instructions, but already in the third zone, there is no coach near the opponents’ goal. There are qualities of the players themselves, they make their own decisions. After the Champions League matches, when you come to the hotel, it feels like I ran 12 kilometres and not the players. This is such a high level of small things. I always analyse football not globally, but in small elements: how did you get into position with your body, where is the space for a diagonal between the lines, where is there a third player to play through, how to play ahead of the others in defence, how close you should be to the player next to you, how quickly after losing the ball you have to react, like Otamendi and other central defenders in matches of Argentina not letting you breathe. After all, many centre-backs take a step back in case of a loss and they take a step forward. I saw these microelements in all six Champions League fixtures, and it was also in the World Cup matches. If you want to study, you have to watch a lot of football.

– We will return to the tactical moments of the World Cup, and now there is a question about the central match of the first part of the UPL against Dnipro-1. Why did you decide to change the tactical scheme and actually play with two forwards in the first half? What conclusions and experience did this match give you?
– I don’t avoid such questions. Every coach can make a certain correction after defeats. There will be one more match against Dnipro-1, so after this game I can make an analysis and move forward. It is not always possible to implement the coach's plan in the game. This is a fact. Guardiola, the top coach, also makes mistakes, even in his biographies he admits when he is wrong. He can play without a holding midfielder, put Gundogan instead of Fernandinho or Rodri, that is, sometimes he can even outwit himself. You always want to do everything for the benefit of the team, but it's easy to be a general after the game. If I had known before the matches what was going to happen, then all the games would have been successful and I would not have lost a single match. I wanted to be even braver in this game. We wanted to create a numerical advantage in the midfield to free Mudryk from defensive actions. Mykhailo had to get more space to do his work on the field. You know it for yourself from the Champions League how much Mudryk had to work at 4–1–4–1 formation. Sometimes he was 60 meters away from the rival’s goal during the counter-attack. I told the players that I want to be the protagonist, an active participant in the match and I want to play with the ball in this match. I made this decision to be even dangerous and to possess this ball. The idea was not to give Svatok and the others time to receive the ball while building the attack, to immediately press and force them to play long passes to Dovbyk where we would already have two central defenders. Also, I added Nazaryna to Stepanenko, so that there is a greater probability of picking up rebounds in the holding area and they have no other way out in building an attack. In fact, everything happened like this at the beginning of the match: after the pressing of Mudryk and Sikan, there was a long pass to Dovbyk, a bound where we should have won rebounds and delivered the ball to the opponent's half of the field thanks to the physical qualities of Nazaryna and Stepanenko, and we would have attacked all the time. However, the long passes from the defenders were deeper than we expected, and Dovbyk showed himself perfectly. It is one of the few matches when it was necessary to change the formation already in the 37th minute. In the first half, we played with 4–4–2 formation, but then we switched to our usual formation because there was no such pressure for Dovbyk to receive the ball in the centre of the field, and not behind the backs of the defenders. Although we opened the score, we conceded very quickly precisely after such pass. I had to react. We wanted to benefit the team, but not everything worked out. It's easy to think about it now, but that match was a good lesson for me. The most recent example is Argentina. The team played with 3-5-2 formation all the time, but in one of the matches Lionel Scaloni changed the tactics to 4-4-2, making Messi the second striker. And such tactics worked, ensured a win. This shows that the coach sometimes has to take risks and change the play. If the team win, then everyone will praise him, if he loses, he will be blamed. Definitely, there will be situations in your career when you will feel that you need to change something. If we had won against Dnipro-1, then everyone would have praised us for our tactical literacy and understanding of the play. However, in case of failure, the coach takes all the responsibility, and I do not run away from it. The club pays me money to make decisions. The decision was like that back then. It taught me a lot and made me stronger.

– Regarding Mykhailo Mudryk: how much do the team depend on him now?
– You know, it is a God's gift to have a footballer in the team who can decide the result of the game with one action. So, it is a God’s gift for us. He helps us to solve tactical problems through his technique, behaviour and working ethics. We help to create conditions so that he can receive the ball in a certain space and be even more threatening in attack. This is one of the factors we planned against Dnipro-1. We wanted to possess the ball, play in the opponent's half of the field, this means that Mudryk should be closer to the rival’s goal. Why should he run back behind the opponents’ lateral? This is the factor when, as a coach, I wanted to release the team's best attacking footballer, who at that time had already scored seven goals, from defensive actions. However, sometimes not everything works out, although he scored one goal from the zone where he often scores in this championship. We want to convince such a footballer that there are certain unprotected zones of the opponents. Even if I say that Mudryk will be there, there will be a square where they won't be able to defend, and he gets to that square in time. From the moment of receiving the ball, Mudryk already appears facing the opponents’ goal, that is why he is worth 100 million. I have no control over it as a coach. I can control him to receive the ball in his zone. In this component, Oleksandr Zubkov and Shved also surprised me very much. We lacked them when the guys were injured to get a balance between the right and left flanks in attack. Wingers are very important for my play. So having a footballer who thinks how to become the best in the world is only benefits the team. When you talk to him, you see in his eyes only the ball and the goal of how to become better. He always wants to be the best – in the dining-room, in the gym, in the training session. When everyone finished the session and left, he continues to shoot from point to point, improving his technique and shot. And we want to help him.

– Mudryk is only 21 years old, but can we say that he is already an example for other players?
– Football players with such incredible talent are called "project” in Croatia. The first team gives way to such players much earlier, so that already at this age he has at least 90 or 100 matches. These are the players like Dani Olmo, Luka Modric and many others. They sell a player only after 100 matches here, but not to a top club, but to an intermediate one. In this intermediate club, he improves himself and then goes to Barcelona or Real Madrid, as did Mateo Kovacic, Luka Modric, Marcelo Brozovic. All of them did not immediately get to Real Madrid from Dinamo Zagreb: Luka Modric moved to Real Madrid from Tottenham. Now the circumstances have forced us to take responsibility in our hands and work. The players are young, but they are young considering their career, not age. Again: such a player as Mudryk would have played in Dinamo Zagreb for two years as a main player. Now I'm asking him to play 90 minutes to help the team with his actions, even though he has at least two years to play at this level. At almost 22, he should already have 100 matches for the first team, not 20. Sudakov is 20 years old, and it cannot be said that he is very young. Once again, this is all compared to the model used in Croatia. Everyone compares to how they improve and sell players in Croatia every year. All of them then play for Inter, Barcelona and Real Madrid because of this. At his age, Sudakov has to play in the championship in the main team of Shakhtar, so I come and say that he should already have 70 games for Shakhtar at the age of 20, but it turns out that he didn't even have 20. Now we have to work quickly with such talent, but there is pressure from the fans and we have to work with these factors in mind. We have to go through the experience of defeats, through wins. Barcelona head coach Xavi said that Gavi and Pedri were better than him and Iniesta in their 20. However, neither Xavi nor Iniesta have won the World Cup at the age of 20, while they did it at the age of 28. Luka Modric also did not become the best football player in the world at the age of 20, he did it at 33. So, everything is at the proper time. You have to go through it, and the average age of a champion team is 28 years. We are building a big project, a champion team. And we are building it around young players. And I really want our young footballers to take their time to go to other European championships and clubs. Defender Josko Gvardiol from Dinamo Zagreb did not immediately move to a big club, but went to RB Leipzig. This allowed him to learn and develop gradually. And our players must have patience, continue to improve in Shakhtar, grow together with the club. Such projects are important both for the success of the club and for the career of the footballers themselves.

– One more question about the Champions League. Shakhtar tied with Celtic away in the fifth round and ensured themselves the European spring. Do you not think that the team suffered a psychological decline after that?
– Everything is possible. This is possible due to lack of experience and some game situations that we have not experienced before. This is a human factor. We have a young team and we did our best. We fought for our state, for Ukraine, for the soldiers, for our families, for the fans, we faced challenges of this level for the first time in our lives. When you see that the goal is close, it's like in a sprint: it turned out like a 100-meter race with Celtic, we ran it and exhaled. Maybe it is how it happened. It should be a lesson for our future and only benefit us. We wouldn't have made it against such Celtic if we hadn't postponed the game with Minaj, I say it frankly. We wouldn't have withstood the last 20 minutes because Celtic dropped and we kept playing and could have even won if Sikan scored and we put the game to victory. I thank Minaj and their president for this concession. However, I would like to do the same with Dynamo and Dnipro-1 before important European matches, because the price of the coefficients is very high for the future of Ukrainian football. We played a fight to the death against Oleksandriia with one man down before RB Leipzig, although we have not yet recovered from Celtic. It bothers me as a coach. Yes, we did not pass RB Leipzig, although we made every effort. They had a new coach, the team improved organization, they were focused and looked better. However, we were not in optimal physical form either: tough game and the road from Glasgow had an impact, and we ourselves felt how much we were tired. Not only was it a question of failure, but distress also showed itself after the game against Oleksandriia, where there was an air raid alert in addition. And this is how we approached the most important match in the new history of Shakhtar. However, this is not how they prepare for the most important matches. I cannot understand this because the match could have been postponed and nothing would have happened. And such important matches for Ukraine's coefficients as the match against RB Leipzig are played very rarely. Especially when you are on such a run, you have already shown a lot, the whole world was talking about us, we were showing top football – well, give us a little help. It is impossible to play such an important match against RB Leipzig after such a battle against Oleksandriia. We still don't control emotions and football as Modric, Kroos and Casemiro do. We don't have that experience now and that many games where we can manage the distress.

– But the fans may object saying that everyone plays like that in the top championships. Although should it be probably taken into account in our case that we do not play at home, we are always on the move?
– When we arrived in Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti asked me how much time the road took us. I replied that I we were on the road for 10 hours. He was shocked by this. And you have to come out on the field, prepare for the Champions League under such conditions, and I cannot even do that because of air raid alert. This is an emergency situation, and no team work under such conditions, except for Ukrainian clubs that play in European cups. Ask how much Dnipro-1 travel, how Dynamo move here and there. We should be united and not argue about rescheduling one match. We just wanted to be fresh, to show the entire world that we play for Ukraine, and to score points in the UEFA coefficient table.

– You mentioned the match against Oleksandriia where we played with one man down. I want to ask about refereeing. Mudryk's sending-off in the game against Rukh, Zubkov's disallowed goal, disallowing of two gaols against Zorya. Are there too many controversial moments against Shakhtar during 13 matches?
– There is a level of players, coaches, referees. If the referee does it on purpose, Ukrainian football has a problem. If he is simply wrong, then everyone is wrong – me, the footballers – and then there is nothing bad. If the error is repeated, then everything is obvious. I am a foreigner, but I am not stupid. It is necessary to work and protect the interests of the club in this issue. I am talk about it in interviews, but for every interview there can be punishment, fines. We must concentrate on the football field, do our best over there. I see this happening not only with us, but also with other teams: they give points to someone, they take points from someone. And it goes on and on, and we have to talk about it. Again: if it is done on purpose, we have a problem, but if it is a matter of human error, then everyone is improving, and there is nothing bad about it. We should look at how often it happens and then react.

– Shakhtar had a lot of injuries in the autumn: Korniienko, Shved, Zubkov, Konoplia and Sudakov. What could this be related to?
– Shved, Zubkov and Korniienko did not have such playing experience when they came. Not everyone went through the training camp with us, and everyone had certain problems: Korniienko was in Poltava before the training camp and could not train, Zubkov had an injury and missed a lot before our start, we gave him a load through the Champions League so that he had playing experience. That's pretty much what we've expected through our injury tracking system. There were not too much injuries in total, but these are football moments too. You can get injured because of the load, because of the psychological pressure that you face for the first time in your life, and this stress leads you to the side. Over time, everyone begins to understand and control own body better, but this comes with experience. I think that generally the percentage of injuries was not very high taking into account the matches, trainings and workloads and we are glad about this. Of course, we lacked these players, especially in the last part of the league, when Konoplia, Shved, Zubkov were out and we simply did not have a right wing. These people make the difference on the football field and their actions can win the match. We had to find out new methods: for example, Bondarenko and Ocheretko played in the false winger position, and we had to raise the lateral. The winger operated in the centre and was actually the eight, like Bondarenko and Ocheretko. This was felt in the tactics of aerial football.

– Can you explain who is a false winger?
– The very word "false" indicates that this is not a winger. This is not Zubkov or Bondarenko. It's like Messi once played for Barcelona as a false forward, a false nine. When you put Bondarenko in the 4–1–4–1 formation as a winger, but everyone perfectly understands that he is not a winger. Sometimes, you put Kryskiv, and he himself likes to go to the penalty area which he showed in the last match. Maybe he is a free eight who scores and likes to play closer to Traore, Sikan. When he goes up, the eight zone is exposed, then false winger Bondarenko moves to the middle and turns into an eight. And Bondarenko is the one of the best eights in Ukraine. Then I bring the lateral up and we maintain the width through him. Although we did not have a lateral: Bondar has been playing there recently, and Taylor has not been at his best, and we had an asymmetry. A coach must also think about giving balance in space, because for me football is space and time.

– The World Cup was held in winter for the first time causing change of the club football schedule. There were a lot of talks about the fact that injuries have increased precisely because of the tight schedule and high intensity. What can you say about this?
– I have heard and read a lot of interviews on the matter that the winter World Cup puts a lot of stress on footballers. Everyone has injuries and many world stars did not go to the World Cup. This is a very heavy load. The players are not robots. I don't think the winter World Cup was beneficial. The teams did not think about the health of footballers or the quality of football. If I were to make a decision, I would not do this. However, the decision is made by FIFA, and you have to adapt. But these extreme loads reflecting in injuries are a fact, not just my opinion.