MUSCAT, May 8
Serbia’s Slobodan Pavkovic, Technical Director at Oman Football Association (OFA), said that Covid-19 pandemic restrictions have affected the implementation of his strategy and initiatives for football development in Oman.
The experienced Serbian technical expert in football coaching had joined the OFA in February last year. “Since I had joined OFA, I have worked only 40 days without Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. All the set plans, initiatives and strategies for improvement of Oman’s football could not be executed due to the global pandemic outbreak’’, he told Oman Daily Observer in an exclusive interview.
However, Pavkovic said that despite Covid challenges he had completed five key documents which were shared with the national coaches of under-15, under-17 and under-19 teams. “I have prepared during the last few months five key documents including: Playing philosophy on how to play football, Coaching philosophy on how to coach and train, Code of conduct in coaching (how to behave), Code of conduct for players and Code of conduct for parent’s players. Besides the above five mentioned documents, I have written two books on ‘Coaching work’ and ‘7 Vs 7’.
The first book gives instructions and guidelines for the youth teams coaches on how to deliver the right coaching for junior players, while the second book is on the best ways and practices to improve your game’’, he said.
ONLINE PLATFORMS
Using advanced technology communication platforms during the lockdowns was one of the alternative solutions for the 65-year-old Serbian to convey the message and continue his work with the national youth coaches.
“I have started since last 45 days ‘Zoom’ sessions with the national coaches on youth football coaching. Different topics were discussed during the last sessions including training process, playing philosophy, code of conduct for coaches, code of conduct for players, training of players in smaller group and finishing techniques during the matches’’, he pointed out.
The former technical director in the Singapore Football Association agreed that delivering of the theoretical sessions to the domestic youth coaches is not enough to implement proper development of football in the country.
“I wish to have practical and field training sessions with the clubs’ coaches. I have started in December last year a technical programme for the youth coaches in the domestic clubs. The workshop was supposed to cover all the 44 clubs in the Sultanate. Unfortunately, and due to the Covid challenges, we could manage to have only one session in Muscat governorate’’, he clarified.
Pavkovic, who is well-known for football coaching on YouTube, affirmed that after resuming of sporting activities and things move to better situation, the technical programme and his visit to all the clubs will resume.
“I wish to resume my plan to visit all the governorates to cover all the Sultanate’s football clubs. This will assist us to have better analysis in country’s footballing. I have got the opportunity to be with the national U-16 team in Bahrain camp last year. We have talented players who need continuous and proper training schedules’’, he said.
The Serbian football expert said the theoretical part of his job is completed with the national youth coaches. “All the football coaching documents and supported coaching books were already delivered and presented to the domestic coaches. Two more steps are pending and that can be briefed on implementation these coaching strategies and quarterly evaluation to the executed strategies by the youth coaches to ensure smooth learning process to the junior players. Evaluation steps can be implemented physically only with field visits which we hope to do after restart of the sporting activities’’, he ended.
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