In an interview to In Camp program Dynamo head coach Slavisa Jokanovic summed up winter VTB training camps and told about the specific preparation for a series of matches against Krylya Sovetov.
— Are you satisfied with your full-time training camp with the team? What aspects did the team manage to improve?
— It is not my first time, because I have already worked at the club last summer and it was a long pre-season too. I can be satisfied with these training camps. We have worked hard for a long time. Now there is the final part of preparation for the official matches. We played a lot of pre-season games. The guys looked good in many friendly matches. So I hope that we are on the right track and ready for the restart of the season.
— Is there something new that you learnt about the players?
— Every day I learn something new about my team, about my players and profession. I still have a lot to learn. This process never stops.
— There is only one new player in the team – Milan Majstorovic. What is his perspective? Is he ready to make his debut in RPL?
— He will be ready. He is a young player who has just turned 18. Milan is one of the most talented young footballers in Serbia. Dynamo had been following him for a long time even before I arrived working here. He is a quality player, and I think he will be able to debut in the spring part of the season.
— You took a large group of players from the second team to the training camp. What do you think about them and their perspective in the main squad?
— This is a normal situation for most clubs during pre-season time. We wanted to check other young players. At the training camp, we had 16 footballers who passed through Dynamo-2, and this is very good news for us. Now some of them will come back to play games at Dynamo-2, and the rest will stay with us. All of them were making efforts, treated their job seriously and now they will look for their chance.
— You talked a lot about building the winning mentality. Did all the wins at training camps help to achieve it?
— It's a daily work. We must constantly support self-confidence and team discipline. We saw positive signs during this pre-season, but this is still not enough. In the first part of the season we had both ups and downs, but in the last two months the team started to trust in its strength, to believe in the coaching staff too. This is another process that never stops. In some friendly games, we lacked concentration and self-belief for the entire 90 minutes. We need to improve these aspects and play with full concentration from the first to the last minute.
— Which of the friendly matches did you like the most? We mean the performance that the team showed.
— I would not single out any one. These are preparation games, in which we played mostly against lower-level teams, except for the last match with CSKA. All of these encounters gave us the necessary information before the restart of the official competitions.
— The team scored a lot of goals, almost four per game on average. Does this mean that Dynamo will play more aggressive in attack in the spring?
— I wouldn't say that. I repeat that we played only friendly matches. We needed to find the right balance on the pitch. We will try to stick to our own style. We are not a team, which started from the zero at these training camps. We refreshed some patterns, recalled the game connections that we worked out in the fall.
That's why it was easier for us than the last summer, because the guys didn't have to get used to the new coach. They already knew what I wanted from them and what they needed to show on the pitch. And the fact that we are the team that knows what it wants encourages me. Of course, we have something to improve – we tried to do it at training camps and will continue working on it during the season.
— Vyacheslav Grulev and Mathias Normann finally returned to the pitch after a long absence. Are they fully ready to participate in official games?
— Let's see, both players overcame similar injury situations. Grulya returned to the group a few weeks ago and has already participated in some pre-season matches. We were positively surprised by his level, considering his absence period. Normann has a more or less similar situation. He started working with the team, but unfortunately Mathias was out for the last few days because of a cold. I expect both players will be ready to help us in the second part of the season.
— And what about Zakharyan? Arsen missed several matches. What's wrong with him? Will he be ready for the matches against Krylya Sovetov?
— Zakharyan missed ten training days and returned to the group only recently, having got 45 minutes against Alania. He had problems with the adductor muscle. I hope that we will try to join us in the coming days, and then we will decide whether he will be available for the first official game or not.
— When Daniil Lesovoy broke his toe, they talked about 3 weeks. But he returned to the team much quickly. Has he a lot of desire to play?
— Yes, besides, he did not complain and feel pain. But at one of the training sessions, he stopped because he felt discomfort, and the medical staff took a decision that Daniil needed a couple more days to recover. But he didn’t miss a lot of training sessions and will be available for official matches soon.
— On February 21 you will be in Samara. Will the team have enough time to acclimatize in less than two days, arriving from +15 to -3 and snow?
— We hope that this will be enough. Our medical staff warned me that in the first days after returning, one of the players might get sick. And we decided that we would arrive in Samara one day before the match. Krylya have more or less the similar situation, but they will have one day more for acclimatization. After the match, we will have several days to prepare for the next game. This is a natural situation for all Russian clubs. There won't be anything strange for my players, but it might be a bit unusual for me.
— Krylia held training camp near to us. Did you manage to watch their games during the pre-season?
— Yes, I watched their match with Torpedo yesterday. My staff and analysts have also watched the other four games. I don't expect that Krylya will change a lot for these days. They will play in the same style as last year. They have several new players. So the matches against them will be complicated for us. Hopefully for them too.
— We have three matches in a row with Krylya Sovetov. Do you remember such a series in your career? And how did you prepare the team for such an occasion?
— I don't remember that I had such series. But it will happen to us at the beginning of this part of the season. It's not easy to motivate the team for all these games. Probably, the mood of both sides will change depending on the results behind of us. In any case, we must come back trusting in ourselves, in our self-discipline, professionalism and concentration. Of course, it won't be easy for the team, but a lot of things will depend on us. Krylya are a high-quality team with their own strengths that can be a danger. We have to be ready for anything.
— And we will hope to win three games in a row.
— Yes, it is a target for all the teams, and we are no exception. We want to make the next successful step in our development. And the first step will be the match in Samara, after which we will think about the second-leg game and the rest of the upcoming encounters.