Roman Sanzhar, the former head coach of Olimpik and Karpaty, is trying to find himself in football in faraway Australia.
Roman Sanzhar"Thoughts of moving appeared in my mind some time before 24 February 2022. I was out of work and I have relatives in Australia - two sisters, nephews. In the first hours after the war started, my sister called me on the phone and suggested I come, and I agreed....
You know, I experienced all this more than once. First in Donetsk, then in Kiev. It was scary, although I realise that everyone was going through roughly the same thing. At that time, I lived with my family in a district of Kyiv where, I think, for the first time, a missile fell on a residential building. On a neighbouring house... As life happened, I ended up in Australia. I am very sorry that our country faced such a disaster.
In Australia, I live in Sydney. I am creating my own children's football academy. I will tell you straight away that the system and the structure of football is completely different here. There is a very strong A League, where all clubs are roughly equal, because there are specific financial constraints on club budgets.
The A League is the only professional division, all the others (like the State Championships) are amateur or semi-amateur. There are big stadiums, very good atmosphere at matches, lots of fans; football is more open than in our country, though less disciplined. There are a lot of football academies in Australia. When I came here, I decided to open my own academy, but for now it's loud - it's more like a class of boys aged 6-15 that I coach, either individually or in groups. In the future though, I hope it will be an academy in our sense, with lots of fields, different age groups of kids, and coaches. Thus, I refocused on children's football.
But I want to return to professional football, I have such plans. In the meantime, I am getting settled in a new place, improving my English, developing. I am working with children now. I had offers from different academies here, but I refused, because I decided: it's better to start something of my own," said Sanzhar.
