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Vladan Ivić: “You never know what can happen in the future – I am tied to Greece”

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In the discussions he had, both with the management of Partizan and for the national team of Serbia, Vladan Ivić mentioned, speaking to the Serbian website “Kurir”.

The Serbo-Greek technician left open every possibility for his career and spoke of the special bond he has with Greece, as his wife and their two daughters live in Thessaloniki (after his move from PAOK).

What Vladan Ivic said in detail on the Serbian website “Kurir”

For the interest of Partizan: “I had contacts with both Partizan and the Serbian federation, but in the end I decided to stay out of Serbia for personal reasons. I follow Serbian football, I believe in it. And the league is strong, and so is the national team. You never know what might happen in the future. I can’t say now that I want to take over Partizan, nor that I won’t. I won’t go into details about it now. This is a question to which I cannot give a definite answer.”

For Krasnodar and if he thought of rejecting it because of war: “I was in Israel before. Apart from what is happening there now, relations there were very tense in the past, all kinds of things were happening there. Russia was definitely a new challenge for me, but if you ask because of this military operation on the territory of Ukraine, it was not a big problem for me.

I work in football, in sports, I do my job in the best possible way. The situation all over Russia is quite normal, we travel all the time. Everything except the airport works fine. I didn’t see that this could be a problem.”

For the messages from Watford friends asking him to return to their club: “To be honest, this is the first time I have received this information, because of course I do not use social networks. For the first time I thought a lot about whether to accept this challenge. I knew how the club worked, the owner had two other clubs in other countries. But it was clear to me how difficult it is to go to England to work as a coach, especially if you are Serbian.

So, I accepted this offer. But it is very difficult to work in this club, I was fired in December 2020. Three years later, ten more coaches have changed! This is the philosophy of the boss. Some may accept it and some may not. I can say it was a good experience. Whether I would return to England? If a good offer came along, why not, but at Watford there’s no way.”

About how the contacts with Krasnodar began: “I spoke with Krasnodar two years ago and I was very close to signing a contract. At that time they decided to take the German Farke, so they had a Russian coach before I came. We talked, there were a lot of business requests from their side. How they want, what they want, how they want to develop new players. We didn’t want to change the philosophy, but we wanted to change the fact that the game should be based on the result. Krasnodar play with this 4-3-3 formation, which they have played in the past.”

For being named coach of the month three times in a row in Russia: “This is about the performance of my coaching staff, but before that, it’s the performance of the players. The players are the ones who do what you ask of them, they are the ones who fight and they are the ones who make the coach… a good coach. By the way, I don’t choose friends to work on my professional staff, but people who can contribute. People from whom I can hear a different opinion, people who will open different horizons in my work. I have been working with Milos Veselinovic almost since day one.

He is my assistant, I share with him the good and the bad. Apart from him, there are two more Greeks, goalkeeper coach Christos Kelpekis and preparation coach Nikos Amanatidis. Second assistant coach is Sinisa Gogic. Well, these are the people who work with me and everything I got belongs to them too. I must say that I really enjoy working with them, and even sometimes I must say that I really enjoy working with them, and even sometimes when we argue. Without them it would have been very difficult for me to achieve this.”

On whether language is a problem for him and what city he would like to return to: “It’s not a problem for me. Greek is my second language, I also know English, and I am currently learning Russian. It has many similarities with Serbian. We also have translators and the players mostly understand English. There aren’t many problems in football when it comes to this barrier. I am tied to Greece. I like to come to Serbia, visit my mother and my friends, but my wife and daughters live in Thessaloniki. I just like spending my time in Thessaloniki more.”

Source: Sport Fm

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