Sasha Gracanin
One of the best coaches Serbia ever had, Radomir Antić, finally agreed on August 19th 2008 to take over the helm of Serbian National team. The local football world in total disarray, the national team completely powerless to win even one match, Radomir Antić is viewed as the rescuer from a very troubled state the football in this country is in.
Radomir Antić became known as the handler of difficult cases as a trainer, whereby he rescued and re-established such clubs as Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona. He is viewed as the guy who prepared Barcelona for the successes they had after he left and Frank Rikjaard took over, which became painfully apparent in the last two years Rikjaard spent coaching the Catalan club. Lately he wasn’t really doing much; he was a football commentator for a Spanish network and did some seminars for trainers in Serbia.
The very interesting thing is that Radomir Antić was offered this post continually since 1998, but only now decided to accept. The reasons are very interesting as well, namely, he did not want to have to battle the Serbian football mafia in order to coach the side. Serbian clubs were more or less led by shady elements most of the time since Tito died in the eighties, but the gang which was active in the game since Milošević emerged was even worse.
Their “deal” with the national team was that when the local team, be it Red Star, Partizan, Vojvodina, or whichever club was in question, wanted to sell a player, then he had to be picked for the national team, no matter how bad he was. Then the national side had to play to complement the player so that he looked good, if possible dish him with a goal opportunity.
Radomir Antić didn’t want to have any of that. In fact, before he accepted the job he demanded carte blanche to do as he pleased with the choice of players and time to develop the team. He furthermore demanded assistance by the teams’ in improving both the fitness and quality of the players. Also, not outrageously he asked to be given enough time to build up a good team and through experience and hard work establish a very good national team. He was granted all of the above.
The biggest surprise is actually the response of the team. What used to be a bunch of individuals all pulling to their own sides is suddenly a team. The will to play is there, the pride is back, the confidence within the group seems strong, and, they play good! Well, not really, but there is a certain quality to that team that was missing in past years, although not many players changed, their attitude is a different one.
It will take time to fuse these fine players into a good team, but against the Faroe Islands (a 2-0 win) and France (a narrow 2-1 loss) we were able to observe the rudiments of a change, player qualities are being used properly, they were creative, inventive, trying very hard and unfortunately only partly succeeding, but Radomir Antić only took over the team a mere few weeks ago, what will he be able to produce in a year or more?
I believe that Radomir Antić is the best thing that could have happened to Serbian football at this moment in time. Just now, as the scandals and government clean-ups are shaking up the League, a strong and optimistic national team may provide grounds for future stability and perhaps a rise in quality of Serbian football, paving the way for Serbia’s players to achieve new glory. The whole nation will definitely be watching, and watching closely.
Serbia 08/09 Away PSV Eindhoven 08/09 Home
