Here is the continuation of a large Handballfast interview with the head coach of the men’s national team of Russia before the matches with Belarus, held 11 and 12 March in Minsk. Today is the second and final part of our conversation.
— We have discussed with you, that it’s not so easy to find competitors for the team of Russia, despite all the efforts of the HFR. With all this, you might probably have more free time. Did you consider dealing with parallel club work?
— I was invited to lead the national team of Romania in 2016, when I was training Fuchse Berlin. We had preliminary negotiations in Wien, then I went to Bucharest. I spent 3-4 days there, everything was going fine, but I refused, because Romanians were against compatibility. Then Xavier Pascual arrived from Barcelona and took the team of Romania, and I returned to Berlin and continued my work in the club.
In the current situation, when we have no qualifying matches, I could combine the work in the national team and in the club. I was on vacation in Germany last November, the leadership of HC Leipzig contacted with me and offered a contract. If we had qualified, I wouldn’t have considered the opportunity of compatibility at all. When you fight for getting into the major tournament, there’s so much work, that you have no time to be distracted: you have to keep an eye on the players, communicate with them, attend matches, get prepared for your games.
I don’t have much work to do at the moment. I was ready to accept the offer of HC Leipzig, but the HFR executives objected, they expect me to be devoted entirely to the national team’s affairs. And the HSG Wetzlar owner called me a couple of days ago, asked to help them, their team is in crisis, but the position of the HFR remained unchanged, and I respect it.
— Your contract expires in July 2024. Are you ready to remain at the head of the Russian national team?
— No one can guarantee me it in our profession. There were rumors, that I won’t be here after the European Championship 2022. But this is our work — it happens, that journalists criticize me or supporters write about me bad things on forums. It is normal, I’m a professional, though something hurts me, of course, but I accept reality as it is.
Moscow is the most beautiful city I’ve ever been to, it delights me every day. I got acquainted with many good people here. And my wife, who already came here twice was so excited and tells everyone about it in Berlin. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been here for a long time. But I asked her to come after the matches of the national team in Minsk, because I’m not going to leave Moscow till the next training session. It’s definitely safer here, than in Berlin (laughing)!
— In January the national team played after almost a year break. What effect did the pause have?
— A great effect. I noticed it immediately. Much depends on the attitude to the national team in the club, from which the player is invited. I feel it in each of them, we talk a lot face to face. I know everything about each player and club. They come to me with pleasure, they are interested in it.
I had all the records of Croatian matches from the World Cup 2023 with 5-1 defense, I want to play it. I called them in twos, in threes, in fours and we discussed this defense. When I prepare for the match, some players even come to demonstration room half an hour before, they are interested.. They watch a montage, I stop the record, analyze, explain.
Some say, there is no such practice in their clubs, others, with whom I worked in CSKA, remembered, that we often made such analyses on video, they are happy to do it again.
— How do you overcome a problem, when you notice, that the player is mentally somewhere else?
— I have one capacity: I can motivate a player at any moment. I’m sincere with them and I never lied to them. I’m ready to give them all I have here and here (in my head and heart — Handballfast), but under one condition — they have to return it with full dedication on the court. None of them has let me down during my work in the national team.
I had a problem with Pavel Andreev, I understood, what potential he has, his level of skills was beyond doubt, but he didn’t show his maximum on the court. I took my time, but one day I invited him to come into my office after the workout. I called Sasha Kotov as well, his best friend from Chekhov. And I told him openly: "If you are against me for some reason, it’s your problem, not mine. I called you with the best of intentions and I’m talking to you in front of your best friend. It’s our last conversation on this subject. Tomorrow is another workout, I will watch you with different eyes. If nothing changes, I will have no choice, but to exclude you from the squad. And I don’t want it, because I need you provided you give 100%".
We shook hands, and he changed his attitude to work from the next day. Now Andreev is one of my best and diligent players.
— You said, that you would try to play 5-1 defense before the matches with Belarus. How much time do you need for it?
— It’s difficult to say, as a coach, you never know, how quickly the players completely accept the novelty. We played this defense on Tuesday, and everything went well in the first 20 minutes, I was satisfied with it. Then concentration went into a decline, the players started returning to their teams, turning to the version of 5-1 defense, that they are used to play in their clubs. I terminated the exercise at once and broke off the training.
— What is the difference between this scheme of defense and the familiar one?
— The main difference is the collective defense with its system, it’s close in the place where the ball is. But instead of gathering near the ball, the players start chasing their visavi around the court. I would like to play this defense in Minsk, but I also want to win. If we win, applying this 5-1 in practice, I will be immensely happy. If it doesn’t work, I will change for 6-0, but I want to see, whether we will be able to play it against Kulesh and his partners...
There are a lot of teams in the world without the tactics of actions against aggressive defense. 95% of clubs defend themselves on the 6-0 scheme, any attack is ready for it. But if you’re hacking the system of the opponent… I have an example, when Stefan Lovgren played for THW Kiel, and I was training Frisch Auf Goppingen. THW Kiel comes, we beat them, comes again, we win again! The journalists are interviewing Lovgren, saying that you are to meet again with Goppingen, it’s a clearly inconvenient team to you, and he replies: "It is not about Goppingen, the problem is with Petko — he breaks our system!"
— At that coaching seminar in 2012 in Serbia you analyzed 6-0 defense and stressed the importance of dynamic change of schemes during the game, depending on how the match develops. Did you notice such flexibility at the recent World Cup?
— No, it simply doesn’t exist! I collected a lot of analytical data, supporting this statement. I keep statistics from all major tournaments — the World Cup, European Championship and the Olympic Games. Here are the defense schemes of different national teams: Sweden — 6-0, Germany — 6-0, Spain — 5-1, Croatia — 3-2-1, 5-1, 6-0, Serbia — 3-2-1, 5-1, 6-0… Now everyone is playing 6-0, but not the classic version, but the Spanish one, with the outputs ahead.
I talked to guys from Fuchse Berlin: Kopljar has a height of 210 cm, Marsenic — of 202 cm. I asked them: why go out for 10 meters, when there are no throws from the back line? Return and play 6-0, who will throw you? And they go to 10 meters, where they are confidently beaten one to one — and that’s it. And all young coaches implement definitely this defense — under a carbon paper.
In retrospect, I recall the names of great coaches, whom I met, when I came to Germany: Serdarusic, Andersson, Lindgren, Lommel, Kljaic, Hasanefendic, Stenzel… And now guys at the age of 25-29 are training in the Bundesliga! And the whole league is playing 6-0 with these «Spanish» outputs for 10 meters. Gidsel is a phenomenal player, but if he played with my team, he could have passed through three times, not for the fourth time. And here he cuts through the defense ten times in a match, nobody changes the scheme!
— You have a reputation of a demanding and strict coach, who is able to establish communication with players at the same time. To what extend did you manage to build trusting relationships with Russian wards?
— When I came to negotiations with the head of the HFR Mr.Shishkarev, I knew almost everything about Russian handball. I read a lot about its history during 10-15 days, and had already known from personal experience about its achievements. I learned from Evtushenko, Mironovich, Maksimov… The players also knew a lot about me, of course.
By the way, an interesting episode occurred the day I met the team. I extend my hand to every player, we greet each other, but no one looks me in the eye, everyone keeps their eyes down. Then I gave a speech and said, that we have to shake our hands one more time. "When I give you my hand, I want us to look in each other’s eyes, since I can see your soul in your eyes", — I told the players. Then we shook our hands again, and since that time we look into each other’s eyes.
I often talk to the players. I invite two or three young players to the training session, the skill level is not so important. It is essential, that they feel the atmosphere of the national team and come back to their clubs with this feeling, awaken local habitat. We can’t afford ourselves to leave behind the national team the players from such handball centers, as Astrakhan, Krasnodar, Volgograd, that gave Russia so many great players.
The newcomers are rather reserved at first, when I ask some question, they keep silence. Then Dima Zhitnikov and Daniil Shishkarev come and say: "Don’t be shy, if you don’t understand something, Petko will advise you, he won’t scold you or shout on you!" — and they slowly begin to get free.
— The Germans nicknamed you Harter Hund because of your inflexible character and iron discipline ("hard guy", literally — "bad dog" — Handballfast), compared you with their football legend Felix Magath, who has the similar style of working and at the same time he is also direct and open in communication. The Serbian forward Rade Bogdanovic, who played in Magath’s SV Werder, once said that he was the most honest coach in his career, because he always says everything straight in your face, keeps his word and has never deceived a player. Once you met with Magath. How did this meeting go, did you notice the similarity of characters?
— I used to play football and I keep monitoring it to this day. I like the way Magath works. A friend of mine, Husnija Fazlic, who has already died, unfortunately, was Magath’s teammate (they played together for FC Saarbrucken in 1974-76 — Handballfast), so I regularly watched what Felix was doing. I know, he’s got an iron fist, he likes to give heavy loads and holds intensive workouts, demanding everyone to give the maximum effort.
In the beginning of 2017 I gave an interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the highest circulation German newspapers, which is distributed on all Lufthansa flights. Magath, who was working in China at that moment, was flying home to Germany and saw the title of that interview — "Handball Magath". He called his Berlin agent and asked: "Who is this Petkovic?"
When the agent answered him, Magath said: "I will come to Berlin on January 10. Get me an appointment with him, then we’ll have a dinner!" The newspapers transmitted these words, our agents got in touch with each other, and I accepted the invitation, of course.
When I came to the meeting, there were 20 cameras, three trucks with television equipment in the city centre! Less people came to any press-conference (laughing). We came, got acquainted, talked in front of the cameras and then went to have a dinner. Later Magath attended our matches, when he was in Berlin. When he entered the arena, there were 12 thousand people in the stands — and everyone was watching him, not handball!
— RK Borac, Metaloplastika, SKA Minsk, CSKA, CSA Steaua Bucuresti, HC Dukla Prague… Teams from East Europe once were the best on the continent. Only certain Polish and Hungarian clubs can fight with the strongest as equals now. What are these clubs from this part of Europe lacking to be able to impose competition in the Champions League again?
— Veszprem, Vive Kielce, Wisla Plock, CS Dinamo Bucuresti have sponsors. Yes, a sponsor, able to invest money, is required. In the former Yugoslavia only RK Zagreb manages to stay afloat thanks to the excellent financing. And, for instance, in Hungary each club of the highest division receives 1 million euro before the start of another championship. Obviously, there’s no ceiling, each club can seek sponsors and maximize the budget, but this amount is sufficient to function properly.
Not all the clubs were able to adapt to new conditions. For example, RK Borac is experiencing difficulties now. Once it used to be the strongest in Europe, and now it barely survives. At the same time a basketball club KK Igokea from Laktasi plays in European Cups and is supported by the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, a new arena is built. I’ve got nothing against KK Igokea, but the club from the provence is progressing, while a giant with great traditions fades away.
— You have exchanged the seventh ten long ago, but many young colleagues might envy you regarding good spirit, energy and attitude. How long are you going to train?
— I have two adult sons, one is a doctor in Basel, another is a diplomat, he works in German Foreign Ministry. My wife and I are financially secure, we decided to live in Berlin to stay close to children. I’m thinking of ending my career upon completion of the work with the national team of Russia, I want to enjoy life a little. But it intrigues me, when I see, what direction handball follows. They say that elderly coaches are not in trend, but HC Leipzig is in crisis and calls me, HSG Wetzlar is in the same position — and calls me as well. That means, there is and there will be interest, since there are no much good coaches now. I don’t praise myself, I just confirm what is happening.
I don’t know what awaits us in the future, but I have energy, desire, health, thank God, so, probably I will continue training. My contract expires in July 2024, if we don’t compete in the Olympic Games. I make this reservation, because I’m an optimist by nature and believe in the best!
Photo: the HFR press
