Jovicevic: Coaching Shakhtar is an absolute privilege

Igor Jovicevic gave his first interview as Shakhtar head coach.

- Welcome to Shakhtar! How did the team meet you, what are your first impressions?
- Thanks! It's a very pleasant feeling to see all the players who have arrived in Rotterdam. And the work that we planned has already begun. I see that everyone is motivated, that the team is going to work smiling. This period is really important for us to prepare for the maximum objectives that we set for ourselves. The challenge is really big - to play in the Champions League and justify the UPL giants status. Daily work will answer the question of where we are at the moment. That's exactly what the training camp is for. But we don’t have much time, so I want to use every day and every training session to get the maximum out of each player. I believe everything will be fine.

- How important is this challenge for you as a coach?
- When such giants invite you, that’s really nice and it's a good situation for progressing, playing on the topmost stage, so to speak, and representing Ukrainian football in the Champions League. In the tough time Ukraine is going through, when Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for all of us, for our freedom, the minimum we’ve got to do is presenting our best on the big football stage, in the Champions League. Therefore, we are proud of it and will work every day. That’s the challenge that drives me forward.

- Today you received a Shakhtar jersey bearing your name and number 35. How did you feel at that moment?
- It’s an absolute privilege to be Shakhtar's coach. I’ve read the statistics just now: over the past 14 years, the club has played in the Champions League 13 times. I don't know a single club, except for Barcelona, Real Madrid and maybe a few others, to have that kind of statistics. Therefore, I am saying again that working here is a great privilege.

- Who will be on your coaching staff?
- I have two Spaniards as part of my coaching staff – those are the goalkeeping coach Francisco Galan from Atletico Madrid and Daniel De Castro who is my first assistant and fitness coach. And there are also three Ukrainians who have already worked with me at Dnipro-1: Yurii Benyo, Andrii Khanas and Mykola Shamardin as an analyst. These are my people, who are very loyal to me, we already know each other and understand everything that needs to be done.

- What’s your plan for this training camp?
- Of course, the situation when there was no training for a long time, requires us to work even faster in physiological and tactical terms, so that we immediately get to know the team, so that we feel communication and the guys understand what my technical and tactical requirements are. Although my football is not much different from what the previous coach De Zerbi had: I want to see aggressive ball control and be even more vertical, as much as possible to score a goal, and to be equally aggressive without the ball. It should be not only a style of play, but also a way of life. In life you must have the initiative, take control of the moment and drive your dream forward. The same happens on the football field. The good guys don't play football, so we have to be like those in the street, you know, like those ‘on the block’ where the sports ‘thugs’ play, and we must grow as quickly as possible, because there are a lot of young players in the team now. From me they will get the maximum trust, but also the maximum requirements. And here we’ll have some natural selection – whoever perceives the coach's requirements faster will be in the team, and we’ll be fulfilling the objectives together.

- What can you say about the goals and ambitions for this season, given the complexity of the situation in our country?
- We will prepare for the league season just like everyone else, although they started a little earlier, because some clubs play in the European qualifiers. Our guys played for the national teams a month ago, so this period of rest was also important for them. As a coach, I believe that rest is the best workout. If you work more, this does not mean that you work better, because one needs to balance work and rest in order to reach the top form on the day when they need to show their maximum. It’s very important for us to convince the players that everything is possible in life, you just need to believe in your daily work and put your ego aside. That’s really important. For example, my ego perished 15 years ago and one has to catch the moment of work, hard work is the only way for a person to progress. And when you work as an individual, the team grow at the same time.