Igor Jovicevic, coach of Shakhtar Donetsk: "Football is important to shout that we are still alive"

The life of Igor Jovicevic (Zagreb, 1973) also took a 180-degree turn on February 24 of this year, when Russia began the invasion of Ukraine. The Croatian manager...

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The life of

Igor Jovicevic

(Zagreb, 1973) also took a 180-degree turn on

February 24

of this year, when

Russia

began the

invasion of Ukraine

The Croatian coach was coaching

SK Dnipro-1

, of the First Division of Ukrainian football, at the moment when the sirens across the country began to sound and the bombs began to fall.

He escaped west, like many, and fled across the

Romanian border

, like so many.

Eight months later he directs

Shakhtar Donetsk

, a "

nomadic and homeless

" team due to the destruction of the

Dombás

region , and attends

EL MUNDO

from

Lviv

before heading to

Spain

to visit

Real Madrid

at the

Santiago Bernabéu

'His' Real Madrid.

Because the teenager Igor Jovicevic, a jewel of Croatian football in the 1990s before tearing his ligaments, played for four years at Castilla.

How did you experience the beginning of the war? I was in Dnipro.

We had returned from the preseason in Turkey and that same night, at five in the morning, the bombing began.

The chaos began, the invasion and the stress that I still carry inside.

We tried to get out of the area they were bombing for several days, fleeing west through Lviv, which was the only more or less safe area.

Nobody expected an invasion of this magnitude.

They thought that the thing was going to be only on Donbas, but it is a disaster that still lasts.

It was a feeling of panic and fear, I wanted to leave as soon as possible to join my family.

It took me 60 hours to escape from Ukraine after several attempts, some borders had their bridges destroyed, others were controlled by Russia... In the end I went through customs through Romania.

Did you keep in touch with those who had stayed in the Ukraine? With everyone.

My Ukrainian friends couldn't go out because the law required those over 18 to stay.

Neither could my colleagues from the coaching staff.

And in the end I came back.

The first month was chaotic, and little by little you are adapting to the sirens.

From the fourth month of war, the return of football began to be valued as a way of saying that life goes on.

Sport moves people's emotions and it was important to show that we were still there, to shout that we were alive, as a sign of spite.

And it was decided to play on Ukrainian territory out of patriotic sentiment. When you decided to return to Ukraine, didn't they call you 'crazy'? My family and I have been united with Ukraine for many years, we have a lot of empathy.

We feel like one of them.

I have a dose of patriotism and identification with the people.

I am not a foreigner who does not understand anything that is happening.

When all this started, in 2014, I was the coach of Karpaty Lviv.

I know how the people feel, what has caused them and what they have felt in the invasion.

The reasons for returning have always been sports, because I am not a soldier, I am a football coach, but I have also returned to Ukraine for my heart.

The soldiers allow us to play and we, the athletes, are the best ambassadors of the country.

It is very important to continue with football.

I accepted Shakhtar's proposal because I wanted to progress in my career, that's what I work for, and I also wanted to return the love of all these years. Now they are living in Lviv.

What is day-to-day like? Here we play domestic league games.

We played the Champions League in Warsaw.

In Lviv there has been no bombing for a few months, it is one of the most beautiful cities in Ukraine and part of its historic center has been destroyed.

What there are are many sirens, constantly, that force us to stop training and go to the bunkers, but bombs no longer fall.

We train and go to the hotel, for now we are calm. How was the return of football in the country? In the preseason we were in Holland and Slovenia and then the first game was played in kyiv for a matter of patriotism.

We did not know if Russia was going to take it as a provocation.

We thought about football but also about how to survive.

On how to be calm and play without looking at the sky during the game.

When the sirens sound we have to hide and in that situation we live day after day.

We train and the sirens sound,

It's not easy and we have a handicap compared to all the clubs in Europe.

We are the only team that works in these conditions. What did you say to your squad on the first day of preseason?

How do you manage something like this? On a sporting level, I explained my working method, being a team that no one wants to play against, being solid and with character to win the League and play a good role in the Champions League.

But of course, there is the human plane.

People talk about wins or losses but they don't know which professionals they are talking about and the difficulties of preparing a match with the sirens sounding.

We have a civil responsibility.

Each of the players has suffered during these months of war before the preseason, some were in the defense of the cities, without training, without conditions... I could only tell them to be calm.

You said that soccer was an emotion for the citizens.

I understand that also for the players. By doing our job we try to help the people who are fighting on the front line, so that they can enjoy themselves during the match, make them happy and proud.

It is a small responsibility.

In these types of matches we feel the support of all of Ukraine and that creates a self-esteem to fight, to give thanks to those who fight for freedom and allow us to play football.

It's a bit surreal and it's hard to think about football and maintain emotional stability.

Our last game, last Saturday, was stopped for 15 minutes because of the sirens. Most of Shakhtar's foreigners have not returned and the team is made up of Ukrainians.

How do you see the mentality of your footballers? With courage, morality, spite,

a desire to fight... Most of them are from Donetsk and have family and friends there.

They lost their home in 2014, then they moved to kyiv, they had got used to another city that was not theirs, they had bought a house... And they lost it again due to the invasion.

Now we are in Lviv, we travel to Warsaw or we go to I don't know where.

Our home is the bus.

We do not have the warmth of a house, we are nomads. The staff is totally different from what the public in Spain can know. The good thing, in quotes, is the possibility of doing a project with young Ukrainians who a few years ago did not have this option .

We don't have the Brazilians, who didn't want to come back, and together with the board we decided to try the Ukrainians.

They are young, kids from the U21s, it's still a great team but it's a different situation.

Saturday against Metalist was the first game in 20 years that Shakhtar played at the start with a team made up 100% of Ukrainians. Now he returns to Madrid, which was his home.

Memories will come to mind. From 1991 to 1996. It is the game of destiny.

As a teenager I played there for B and now at 48 years old I return as a coach in the Champions League.

It will be exciting.

I'm a madridista, but in this game I'll try to beat him.He signed for Castilla at the age of 17 and was a great promise, but he didn't make his debut with the first team.

Legend has it that he hid in a hotel and had to play games under a different name due to bureaucratic issues. There were bureaucratic problems and I had to do one of those little things (laughs).

He was not 18 years old and there was some legal problem.

He came from being MVP in the U18 European Championship, Madrid signed me, he trained with the first team,

with Butragueño, Michel, Hagi, Hierro, Hugo Sánchez... My goodness, it was another galaxy and I was a child.

I have a relationship with many of them, they are great people, very simple.

With Michel I coincided in the room in the preseason, they won't even remember (laughs).

I tell my children and they don't believe it. It coincided with Raúl and Guti in the subsidiary. Since I arrived so young and couldn't play with the first team, several generations passed and I was still there (laughs).

Fernando Sanz, Sandro, Víctor Sánchez del Amo... With Rafa Benítez as coach, we had one of the best seasons in the history of Castilla, finishing sixth in Second Division.

In my fourth year, I went with the Croatian U21 team and in a match against Ukraine, look at fate, I tore my ligaments.

It is to write a book.

I was rehabilitated in the old sports city,

which is where the hotel is now where I am going to sleep with the Shakhtar.

What a story… Raúl raised a game with us against Palamós, but he was so good that Valdano raised him quickly.

And with Guti I couldn't get to play because of my injury, but he's one of the best players I've seen and I'm very close to him. Is he still thinking about the injury? desire to improve as a coach.

There's my mindset.

I feel indebted to that 20-year-old player who couldn't fulfill his dream of playing for Madrid's first team. At the Bernabéu he will see a compatriot I don't know if he's familiar with it: Luka Modric. (Laughter) Well, what can I say. .. It's huge.

It is one of the hardest roads that have been seen, Luka was not a youth star, he went through two very tough assignments, one in Bosnia and the other in Croatia,

where he had to prove everything.

It impresses me that the best football of his life has been in the last four years.

His domination of space and time is incredible.

I can draw a parallel between the Croatian and Ukrainian situation.

They are friendly countries.