Legendary Ukrainian coach Vitaliy Kvartsyanyi explained to NV that people from the Balkan Peninsula are not maximalists.
- You have coached Bosnians in your coaching career. Could you tell us what kind of people they are?
- I had a lot of such players, about 15 players from the former Yugoslavia. Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Bosnians. Branislav Krunic and Zdravko Sharaba were directly from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We had a Serb, Marko Devic. All the Balkans have a great talent for playing sports. And not just football. During training, we let them play volleyball, basketball, football with their heads, football with their feet through the net, handball, tennis, big and small. They are very coordinated. Players. Yugoslavia's national team was one of the best in the world in basketball, volleyball, and, of course, football. If they were given full organisation, they could move mountains.
- What kind of character do they have?
- There is one strange feature in their character... They can't always show their talent. Balkans are content with the minimum and think that what they already have is enough. Of course, there are stars in their history. And Red Star won the European Champions Cup. But those I coached were very good players. Yes, they were good, but they didn't know that they could be even better. They were happy as they were. Oh, like Cristiano Ronaldo? He's won almost everything, but he wants to progress more and more, despite being 39 years old. Just like Messi at 37. They have already written their names in the history of football, but they continue to do so. Their desire is to sit on the royal throne, score goals and improve. This is what distinguishes a successful footballer from a normal one. I can hold this philosophy for as many years as I have seen in my life. Coming from the Balkan Peninsula, the experiences are different. I can tell a Bosnian Serb from a Serb, a Montenegrin from a Macedonian, a Croat from a Slovene. I can make a mistake very rarely. I can make one mistake out of ten. Because you can feel the character of the nation. And I can say that they have this zest of fierce talent. I've only had two Bosnians play for me. Sharaba and Krunic. Very talented players. And the Balkans are the most sold players in Europe. The British and Italians are sold among themselves. But the Balkans are very valuable in the football market. They are taken when they are not born superstars. Although they can be.
Nazariy Shmigil.