Before the start of the Super League playoffs, the coach of Radnički 1923 from Kragujevac, Dejan Joksimović, spoke to MONDO about the situation in Serbian football.
The Super League has reached the second stage – after Čukarički and Partizan (1:0) finished the earlier match of the 30th round and marked it again with a scandal, it is clear what the playoffs for the title, exit to Europe, playoff and direct relegation from the league will look like. . Among the teams that in the next few weeks will not fear from the bottom of the table, nor attack its top, there is Radnički from Kragujevac, which decorated the hundredth anniversary of its foundation with a fantastic result.
The team from the “Chika Dača” stadium, led by Dejan Joksimović, in whom the management believed during the entire season, won the eighth position in the table and seven more games against the best teams in the league. Where are the people from Kragujevac in the playoffs and why trust is the most important for such success, the head of the Radničko 1923 profession explained for MONDO in an extensive interview.
“The football public in Serbia did not expect us to be in the playoffs, but it is important that we believed in it. Success is great, especially in the context of the goals set before the beginning. Our primary goal was to win survival in a slightly easier way than last season, that is, to avoid the relegation zone. As the championship progressed, and we played well and recorded good results, an opportunity arose to win survival by placing in the playoffs. Now we are where we are, completely satisfied with the work done,” says Dejan Joksimović.
The coach from Kragujevac is one of only three experts who have been at the same post since the beginning of the season – Žarko Lazetić led TSC to second place, Dušan Kerkez to third place, and Radnički unexpectedly to eighth place. He believes that continuity, along with the trust he felt from the club leaders, was extremely important for such a result.
“For sure, it is very important. Without mutual trust and continuity, there is no quality. I stick to it. The people who run the club recognized all that, there is trust between us. And in some crisis situations, we trusted each other and we overcame them. The result came as a consequence. I have already talked about the problem expressed in our league, people do not have patience, they do not trust, they think that by appointing a new coach they will do shock therapy… From the experience of this and previous seasons , it didn’t work that many times. Not to mention how Surdulica only hit with Slavoljub Đorđević, after changing several coaches. But they trusted him, they had the opportunity to change the team in January, so with his contribution they achieved better results. Many teams changed several coaches this season and it didn’t pay off in the long run. It’s a complex story…”, says Dejan Joksimović and prepares the ground for a new topic: “There is no vision of the people who run the club, so that the profile of the coach is chosen in relation to that, so that the team is selected, and so on. Another problem is that people who run clubs change their goals based on two or three bad results. Appetites grow or there is a fear of failure, so they decide to change. It is easiest to change the coach, the players are under contracts and can only be changed in two transfer periods. Coaches are the easiest… It’s hard for club leaders to admit that they may have made some mistakes, so that they get away with it. I don’t think those changes brought anything to anyone. My example could be good for other people and clubs if nothing is gained by changes. There are talented coaches, they just need to be given the opportunity to work and then show whether they are for that level or not.”
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On the other hand, it was Lazetić and Kerkez who recently raised their voices. The coach of the team from Backa Topola pointed to frequent shifts that bring nothing, and the head of the profession at Banovo brdo also touched on the poor working conditions in Serbian football. The two have now been joined by Joksimović, who supports such views. Since coaches can work in only two clubs, he has the idea to limit the ability of clubs to change!
“I fully support the opinion of Lazetić and Kerkez! I have already talked about it, I think there are ways we can solve the frequent changes of coaches. Just as it was decided that coaches cannot lead more than two clubs in a season, maybe we should limit the clubs as well, so as not to change endlessly. I know that these things are decided by the people who run the clubs, and of course they will try their best not to change it, but from my experience, I am completely convinced that it must change if we want to improve. Nothing can happen overnight, football is a process – one transition period, selection, another transition period, to build the team the coach wants. Without such things there is no happiness. One cannot just bring in players and just hand them over to the coach. Then we come to alibi stories’I didn’t select the team…‘, so why did you take them then? If you saw that they couldn’t play the way you wanted, why did you become the coach of that team? In any case, something needs to change. It’s not even fair that a coach can change two clubs, and a club can change coaches indefinitely,” says Joksimović.
The public in Serbia could also read the unusual statement of the director of Čukaricki, Vladimir Matijašević, who pointed out that in his club they would “cut off the heads” if there were no results… “From the point of view of the people who run the club… But where is your responsibility as someone who chose that coach? Why did you choose him, based on what? How you select a team is how you select a coach. You made a mistake once, twice… What Ilija Čvorović says ‘The central office can make a mistake once’. How does a club miss a coach five times in a season? It is moral that at some point you say ‘People, this is not for me, I’m failing for the fifth time’. You can look at it that way. If anyone can lead a team, anyone can appoint coaches. I’m not referring specifically to him here, but there must be responsibility. Sometimes it works like shock therapy, it shakes up the team, but not like it’s done in our country,” adds coach Radnički z MONDO.
It seems that in Kragujevac things were planned. And when Radnički 1923 had crises – four defeats in a row in the fall, or even seven matches without a win later in the season, Dejan Joksimović was not doubted. How did Radnički 1923 “survive” those situations?
“In such moments, the most important thing is to sit down with the club’s management, analyze the situation and find out why the result was not achieved. The two problematic situations we had were different. In the first part of the championship, we came to the conclusion that we did not have enough quality for what I wanted for the team to look like. At that time, the transfer window was still going on, so we reacted. I said what kind of profile and quality of players we needed, and the club brought in such players. As for the second situation, we determined through analysis that we have a game that will bring a result , we knew that at some point goals and points would come in. The statistical parameters showed that we were playing well, we were satisfied with all segments except the execution. Then we believed that the situation would change and later we “tied” four games in which we had three wins and a draw.“
The champion has already been determined, Europe is too far from Kragujevac, but… Radnički 1923 has a plan for the Superliga playoffs. They will play, enjoy themselves, fight against everyone and try to “decorate” the club’s great jubilee with one of the best results in history.
“We will find a motive for the playoffs, in fact we have already found it. We presented it to the players, we will use this opportunity to present ourselves, the club, the city… We want to play seven quality games against the best teams in the right way and achieve good results against them, let’s create the club’s identity. We can create a mentality for the following seasons in the playoffs, so that whenever those ‘big’ teams visit us, we don’t go out on the field to give up, with a lack of confidence. We showed during the season that we can be competitive against the best teams, so I have no doubt that we will be the right ones. There will be no relaxation, we will not be an easy task. On the other hand, there is no pressure to do something, and that has been known to cause spasms in the players. We are in a relaxed position, but we are not too relaxed. We will try to function and play as we presented ourselves during the season as well. They are the favorites, better individually and as a team, not to mention that they are six times more expensive than us. We have shown at some point that we can correctly match them. I hope that we will function in the same way in these seven rounds. We will try to score some points. It is late for Europe, but it is important for us to be seventh because according to the table, that is an achievable goal. Let’s rise one more step and achieve one of the best placements in the 100th year of Radnički. This is no small matter“, the coach from Kragujevac points out.
Finally, the head coach of Radnicki 1923 revealed his expectations for the last seven matches of the season. The people of Kragujevac will play against all the teams that play in Europe, but he believes that Partizan will not reach the place that leads to the Champions League qualification. “It seems to me that these five teams that are in positions for Europe will stay there. As for the placement, I’m not much of a prognosticator, but based on what I’ve seen, maybe TSC will be second, Partizan third, Čukarički fourth and Vojvodina fifth“, concluded Joksimović. Look at the table before the playoffs: