In an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, former Ukrainian tennis player and current National Guard soldier Serhiy Stakhovsky shared his thoughts on the head coach of the Ukrainian national team, Serhiy Rebrov.
Сергій Стаховський- Sergey Rebrov. You once gave an interview about him, saying that he is also a very good tennis player. How did you get together?
- Through tennis.
- I understand that you are godfathers?
- Yes, he is the godfather of my youngest son Alex.
- What is he like in real life?
- He's awesome.
- What makes him awesome?
- Firstly, he is a man who loves football to the core. The fact is that I am a Dynamo fan. He played for Dynamo, then coached Dynamo, and he loves tennis. It all came together, somehow it all merged.
But he moved to Budapest. I lived in Budapest, he coached Ferencvaros. We spent a lot of time together. This is a man who, when he comes to visit, we have to have some football going on. Any match, I don't know, the British league, whatever - but there must be football, he always watches.
I just started to draw parallels between what kind of player he was and what kind of specialist he is as a coach. Because he is a really powerful coach for me. Not because he's my godfather or because he gives me results, but because I've seen him work. I've seen him work, I've seen him work right inside Ferencvaros, how he works.
And thanks to Roman Bebekh's film The Unknown Dynamo, I was able to compare this work with what Dynamo looks like or what it used to look like. This is, of course, a colossal dissonance.
I have once in my life been to a pre-match analysis of the team - strategy and so on. It's when you spend an hour and a half chewing on each player: "Look, this is your sector. This defender will play with you. This one is a little older - he runs badly, but he holds his position well. This one doesn't play well".
They just chew on the details of what they're going to do, how they're going to do it, how to play, what the tactics are. I sat there and was really just in shock.
And then you watch "The Unknown Dynamo", where they say "Go, go, go! Canopies!" and you think: "How can it function like that?" So for me, he is a real expert, that's how it should be.
- Apart from football, what are your hobbies?
- Tennis. He loves tennis. And wine. We basically have three topics: football, tennis and wine.
