Promise 'winning mentality’ and hard work: Kerala Blasters FC head coach Ivan Vukomanovic

The 43-year-old appeared satisfied with the talent he has at his disposal at Kerala Blasters FC but also made it clear that talent is not everything.

Vukomanovic began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Belgian club Standard Liege in the 2013-14 season. (Image Credit: Twitter/@KeralaBlasters)
By Arnab Mukherji | Jun 21, 2021 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

New Kerala Blasters FC head coach Ivan Vukomanovic has reassured fans that there will be no shortage of effort and hard work, when the team starts its campaign in the 2021-22 edition of the Indian Super League (ISL) later this year. Vukomanovic will be the first Serbian to manage KBFC. He comes with a lot of experience of coaching in the top divisions of Belgium, Slovakia and Cyprus. The Serbian shared his thoughts in an interview with the official channel of the club on YouTube.

“Me as a coach I like to win. Especially you try to give that something extra, that winning mentality to your team. Because if you speak about a club like Kerala Blasters FC, with everything that is going around, this club must be in a winning mentality and winning will to improve and achieve something extra. As a coach, I like to win, I like to obtain certain things, titles, trophies. Of course, we will never promise certain things but we can promise hard work, trying to improve, trying to make this team better and trying to be as high as possible,” he said as quoted by the ISL’s official website.

“Talent is not the most important thing”

The 43-year-old stated that talent was not the most important aspect in his opinion.

“Let’s say there is a lot of talent, which is not the most important thing, if you speak about creating and becoming a football player on a serious level. There are certain things that I liked a lot and it seems that there are many talented boys over there and especially if you speak about football in India, which is in great expansion. I think that, with the correct work and the correct improvement, all these boys can become better, so there are many positive things. I have to say from the very first contact with the director [Karolis Skinkys] and all the people from the club, it was really a pleasure to meet all of them. The professional side, the honesty and everything we were talking about… that this project was very interesting to me. So, that was the first opinion,” he added.

Ivan stated that though he played for a number of clubs like FC Bordeaux, Germany’s FC Koln as a defender, he will be looking to mould his style based on the quality in the dressing room.

“Every coach has his own style and the idea of how to play and how to improve certain things but it always depends on the quality you will find in the dressing room, the quality you will find in your players. So, of course if you look at modern football today, everybody likes to see modern and fast football with lots of transition, lots of attacks and attacking animations with lots of goals. If you speak about preferred style, I like offensive football. I like many things, to see how they evolve and of course, to score more goals than our opponents. I can tell them (the fans) we will work very hard to make them proud, to make them happy because they deserve it,” he concluded.

It will be interesting to note the performance of the club in the upcoming edition of ISL.





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