Andrey Vedischev head coach appointment was one of the main news of the offseason. The longtime Krasnodar team President explained the decision and talked about his goals.
President or coach?
Lokomotiv Kuban is a very big system, so whether you want to or not, you have to remain President.
At the pro level, experience and understanding are very important for a coach. There are no rules or standards here. Working as a head coach, you have to devote almost all your time to the team and analyze practices, games, preparation for games. You just don’t have an extra minute, I have to switch from the coach to the President and back again. This situation hinders me of course. I feel a little overwhelmed, but I manage to overcome it.
I am grateful to my coaching staff. They help me a lot, adapt me and try to make me get into tactics faster. Tactis are the most difficult thing. You have to look at the game in a different way than the President does. Here you need to catch all the tactical shifts, movements, who stands in what place, at what angle. There are a lot of details, where you turn on your brain 100%. Thinking, analyzing. And you have to do it very quickly. I have a lot of room for improvement in this area in the future.
Making the decision to become a coach
It was a kind of analysis. Analysis of games, psychology, relations within the team and within the organisation. The decision took about 2 or 3 weeks, maybe a month. I thought about it, I saw that we were always missing something. In recent years we played in the final, we played a decisive Semi-finals Game 7. I’ve seen what things hinder us and what keeps us from winning the League and moving forward. My opinion – we had chances in the Finals and in the Semifinals last year, but certain circumstances prevented us from making a step.
In any case, regardless of the result, I definitely realize that Loko will be with a different policy today, with a different vision of the game and development. I have young guys playing for me who, I think, with a foreign coach would not have gotten this chance or this chance would have been a few years away. My goal is to make a move and give a chance in time. If you do that, development and progress happens much faster than former coaches did in previous years.
I really like the fact that I am young and promising coach. It’s a very interesting experience, I like everything we do, but there are important games with big teams ahead and there will be a little bit different psychology, different emotions, for me it’s the next stage of my development.
Of course, I will leave if I see that I am not doing well and I lack knowledge or experience for a great result. I will make this decision and I will not delay it, I will not explain that we will play something next season. The decision will be made as soon as I feel it needs to be made.
Coach Vedischev’s innovations
I definitely made changes, I definitely made innovations. Attitudes, psychology, discipline. We prepare like all teams in the League. We have a difficult schedule due to traveling. We leave a little earlier, we are on the road more, so we need more time to recover. All these challenges we have to overcome, but they also bring us closer together.
We are focusing more on ball movement, team play, defense, which is very important in our case. We discuss how we’re going to defend, how we’re going to stop, how we’re going to keep our opponents from playing the basketball they want to play.
Balancing all 12 players’ time on the court is one of the main things I would like to accomplish as a coach.
We also have a very talented doctor on the team. He approached me at preseason training camp and said he would like to introduce meditation into the pre-game system. I supported this story and now we have a mental practice before every game.
The process is not a secret. The team lies down, there is some music, our coach walks around and says the text. The session lasts about 20-30 minutes. The main goal is to switch off thoughts, to release tension. These things are the main goal of the practices. I asked about the sensations, everyone likes it. I think we are on the right track, but we need to do it all the time. For Loko it will be clear what we are ready for closer to the New Year.
Coaching guidelines
Malkovic and Bartzokas are the top coaches who worked with Lokomotiv in their time. Pashutin, Bazarevich – that’s our school. Malkovic is a unique coach who won the Champions League with 4 different teams. Of course, I’ve peeked at some of their work, learned some things from them, how they influence the team. But as President, you’re not on the inside. You see things differently now than you do when you’re a coach. At every training session you see who is ready, in what mood. Everyone is human and you need to feel who can come out in the moment and make the result.
New coach goals
First place. Only first place, otherwise it won’t be the result President Vedischev is thinking about.
There are always some subjective factors and objective factors. If I realize that we didn’t win because of objective factors, it will be acceptable. I would like to see that within 2-3 years we will build a team that can be a champion.
Community Reaction
The first call I got was from Sasha Obradovic – Monaco head coach. It was done right in the moment, he was at dinner with our mutual friends and he congratulated me on this decision. He said that he believed in me, told me words of support.
Sergey Kushchenko congratulated me, Ilona Korstin congratulated me, but they all said one phrase: “Well, you’re crazy, why do you need it?”. But I have already said what for and why.
Andrey Kirilenko congratulated me, and I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his re-election as RBF President. I wish him and all of us together success and development. Together we will make our game really interesting and better.
