Bojana Popovic took charge of a team at a world championship for the first time when Montenegro threw-off their Poland 2018 campaign, last week losing 20:16 in a tough, defensive battle against France.
Further defeats, to Korea (37:24) and Tunisia (31:27), and a draw against Spain (18:18), saw their campaign still alive come their final group game, against Kazakhstan, and the mathematical miracle to go through to the eighth-finals did not transpire as their 29:24 victory was not enough with Spain eventually taking the final qualification spot.
Spain now find themselves in the quarter-finals later today, but for Montenegro they will face Chile in the President’s Cup Final (17/18 Placement Match) after Popovic’s side won their second game in a row, defeating Argentina 25:15 yesterday.
For Popovic, this is all part of the continued learning curve she finds herself on as a coach after her work with Dragan Adzic as his assistant with the senior Montenegro women’s team and Buducnost club side following a brief spell beforehand as interim coach before Adzic re-joined.
“If I compare coaching to playing it is three-times more difficult to be a coach - it’s very difficult,” said Popovic to IHF.info. “When you are playing you are focussing on yourself and preparing yourself for the games and it was very easy for me, but now, you have 16 players with 16 personalities at this age and during tournaments they can go up and down.
“But I am really enjoying coaching, learning about the preparation period for the next games and how to help players to explain and understand me as sometimes I am good and sometimes I am not good,” said the London 2012 Olympic Games silver medallist.
“When it works with them then I am happy, but if I see eyes that don’t understand [what I am saying] then I am sad, but I am learning from this and working hard [with my information] in the future so the players will understand me faster.
“It makes me crazy sometimes,” continued Popovic, who sat in the stands for the Korea defeat after she received a one-match ban from the bench for her reaction at the end of the Spain draw.
“You need to find a way with the players to explain the things which I can see on the court. OK, difficult things they don’t see, but easy things if they don’t see them, I am a bit like ‘oh I cannot understand this’ but of course after two minutes I understand, and I try and find a way how I can explain it.”
Aside from discovering herself as a coach, Popovic is also on a steep learning curve with her players, having worked with them for just under a year.
“I have been with these players maybe 10 months, when we started training together, so there are many new things for me,” explained the 38-year-old. “The players in this age are new, and almost all coaches here have had a longer period with their players, so for me it’s new to have a tournament like this. I, of course, learn many things about my girls because I don’t know them so well as it’s not too long a period we have been together.
“From game-to-game you learn many things, whether you win or not, and Poland 2018 has given us lots of information about things we need to train in and be better in.”
Popovic, who won the Women’s EHF Champions League with Montenegrin side Buducnost at home in 2012, is also well aware of the need to develop potential future players versus the here and now need to win matches and championships.
“We need to build up our players because we are a small country,” said Popovic. “It’s about getting the players ready for the national team because it’s difficult to find so many good players in Montenegro because we are not so big.
“If we get two or three players from this tournament for the senior team or for Buducnost we will be happy. All of these games here we are using to get a closer team and get the players to learn something new and get some experience.”
As part of the next generation of Montenegrin coaches, Popovic is also helping to bring through coaches herself, with former national team and club teammate Suzana Lazovic her assistant coach in Kielce, with the pair splitting their duties between defence and attack guidance.
“She understands defence very well because she was perfect in defence [when she was playing] and can help them very well,” said Popovic about her assistant, and friend.
“She uses her energy on both sides but it’s easier in defence because they know our system and they need to just have support with talking because, sometimes, they want to sleep a little bit, so we wake them up and talk to them about how to react.
“In attack I try to give some good ideas to the players - sometimes it works and sometimes they are a bit nervous, but Suzana and I are a good mix because she has absolute energy too.”
With their match against Chile the last time this generation will play at the youth world championship level, Popovic was keen to stress how crucial it was to end their time in Poland with a positive performance to take home, no matter whether it is a final or placement match.
“It’s important,” said Popovic. “I said to the players before the tournament no matter what game it is, eighth-finals or otherwise, we need to build up something – the defence needs to build up and be better, the attack needs to build up and be better and we all need to be better individual players.
“We will be ready for the fight against Chile,” she continued. “The only question is whether we can give 100% again like we did in the second half against Argentina where we had a good defence, and this helped up score some easy goals – the way we should play.”