UNFINISHED STORY
Up close and personal with Vlad V
VLADIMIR Vermezovic is suspicious of one species — the media.
His fraught relationship with the fourth estate is akin to that of a snake and a mongoose.
The irony is that the fourth estate has already entered the building of the newly appointed Orlando Pirates coach.
“All my life I was fighting with the media, the journalists. Now I have one at home,” chuckles the Serbian as he tells me of Sara, his 25-year-old daughter who has qualified as a journalist.
“She just finished and she’ll go to Salonica in Greece to study for her masters. We’ll see after that.”
His son Luka is 20 and is studying marketing management in the US. His wife Mirjana is coming to South Africa this week.
Unveiled on Valentine’s Day to replace Roger de Sa, many want to see how the man who loves “eating ribs and enjoying chicken wings” handles the pressure that comes with coaching Pirates.
Vlad V turns 51 in June and claims “I’m now older, wiser and calmer” — and noticeably balder and greyer in his second coming to the country.
“Understanding the culture is important. Sometimes players here are too strange, too lazy,” says the man who coached Kaizer Chiefs between 2009 and 2012.
“Mentality is the most important thing for a European coach. When you scream, it is nothing personal, but players here take everything personally. You have to be very careful in conversation with them,” he says.
“In the beginning I was very nervous, but after that I understood that they are naturally like that. I can’t change their nature.”
Change is going to come at Pirates as Vermezovic promotes his philosophy of the playing P’s — pressing, possession, passing and penetration.
“That’s my kind of game. The fitness level must be very high. They must all run together, be it positive or negative transition. We’ll reach it after pre-season.”
It is a kind of game Pirates play with aplomb on their day, as when they beat Mamelodi Sundowns in a display of high tempo, intensity and complete concentration from start to finish. The trouble is, those moments of invincibility are a rarity, an inconsistency Vermezovic is relishing to address.
“It will happen because the structure here is better than most countries in Europe, especially eastern Europe.
“SA players have talent and you can’t refuse an opportunity to bring life to a side of the stature of Pirates,” he says.
Mentality is the most important thing for a European coach. When you scream, it is nothing personal, but players here take everything personally. You have to be very careful in conversation with them
That he inherits a team with a core central defence of a combined age of 103 is of little concern to Vlad V.
Captain Lucky Lekgwathi is 37 and fellow central defenders Siyabonga Sangweni and Rooi Mahamutsa turn 33 in September and October respectively.
“There’s no young or old. There are players who can play or who can’t, who want to play and suffer, or who don’t.
“But we have to be very careful with those three guys. They can’t train like the young ones. They just have to worry about their health, nothing else. We will care for them in a different way than the rest of the squad.” The squad number is 33. “It’s too big, you can’t work properly with such a big group. I don’t want to send players on the side to run and run and run. They must train properly.” What’s ideal? “I want 25, two players for each infield position and three goalkeepers. Maybe one or two youngsters to learn from the seniors.”
He says the squad has no balance. “Against Mpumalanga Black Aces, we had not a single left-footed player on the pitch.”
Left back Patrick Phungwayo is progressing to full fitness, but Thabo Matlaba, who has made that position his own, has a new position on the horizon.
“The left side of midfield, that is his right place. This guy is skilful, fast, and is more offensive than a normal left back. Frankly, I see him in midfield. He must accept that in his head.”
In addition, the strikers are struggling to find the net. A player Vermezovic knows from his days at Chiefs, Lehlohonolo Majoro, will play a pivotal part in converting chances.
“He must use the remaining games to up his fitness level. He’ll go on holiday with a special programme to work on to help him to come back as the Majoro that I know — dangerous, quick and knows how to score goals.”
In his three years at Chiefs, between 2009 and 2012, Vermezovic won the Telkom Knockout twice, but never the league.
“That is my unfinished story in SA. I want to win the league and as many trophies as possible, especially the Caf Champions League. That is my main goal. This season we reached three finals and lost all of them. The biggest heartbreak was losing the Caf Champions League. We have to change that.”
Soccer scribes hope Sara’s swelling of the ranks will soften her father’s perception of the press. “As for my relations with the media, we’ll see as time goes on,” he says with a smirk.