The Slovak Football Association responded within a few hours. Although he did not deny the information, he said that he has arranged another meeting with the 57-year-old coach for next week.
Chaos around the Calzone
It is three weeks after Slovakia was eliminated in the play-off for promotion to the summer world championships, at that moment Calzon’s coaching contract also expired, who sat on the bench in 2022. It seems that SFZ has not moved on the issue of an old or a new national team coach for now.
“I was against him, so it’s good when it turned out like this,” Ladislav Borbély, a football expert we contacted, responded to information from Italian journalists. At that moment, we had no idea that from the SFZ’s point of view it was not yet officially a closed matter.
The whole matter is dealt with by the SFZ’s expert advisory commission. Its members are Karol Belaník, Ján Kocian, Ivan Kozák and Oto Brunegraf. They should choose the most suitable candidate and offer it for approval.
“But I’ll tell you, it’s a total anomaly. As far as negotiations are concerned, they’re extremely incompetent people. They’ll create a commission, but since the end of March they’re not negotiating with anyone, they’re just preparing to negotiate.
And they don’t even know with whom. It looks like they have it ready for Calzona, they just can’t pay him,” Borbély told us.
“The negotiation techniques of the union officials are weak. After all, right after we fell out with Kosovo in the playoff for advancement to the World Cup, they should have had a list of potential aspirants, met with them, compared their pros and cons.
Instead, they keep waxing poetic about the Calzona. As if they were in love. I don’t know, maybe he spreads love around himself, we know that he likes his players, he never criticized them, he liked to use evaluative hyperboles,” the football expert added.
What annoys him the most is that no names other than Calzona are mentioned in the debate. “Why don’t they also talk to Slovaks,” he asks. “They still brag about it? What kind of commission is this? Some kind of confirmation commission? As if in our circumstances the semantics of the word selection and confirmation are identical.”
Let’s take the debate further
For Borbély, there is no valid argument why Calzona should continue with the national football team. He claims that he has given more than enough reasons. Perhaps the most serious is the uneven performance, as the team is usually unable to follow up on a successful meeting.
“Everything is valid, although I’m tired of going back to it. I’d much rather talk about a real coach who can move Slovak football forward,” he moved the debate.
If Calzono’s departure is confirmed, four names come to mind who could take the helm. All are Slovak. He did not hesitate to name them. “Vladimír Weiss, Michal Gašparík, Martin Ševela and Adrián Guľa,” he said before approaching each one.
Weiss is currently coaching Slovan Bratislava and is aiming for another title with him. “However, in the given financial situation, I don’t know if Vlado would be willing to accept worse financial conditions than Calzona had. And in a way, it would be justified,” Borbély thought.
According to leaked information, the Italian coach had a contract for 70,000 euros per month.
Read more The dark and human face of Tomáš Řepka: football, scandals and redemption
Gašparík leads the Polish Górnik Zabrze, currently the third team in the competition with only a three-point deficit to the leader. In addition, he reached the final of the Polish cup with a team that, according to Polish football experts, is only average. Previously, he won the Slovak Cup three times with Spartak Trnava,
“Yes, Mišo has a great perspective. He suits me for this position. But it is still probably too early for his personal growth. It is important that he continues in the club environment and completes his coaching development there. I think he himself expressed himself in a similar vein,” he indicated where there could be a problem in his engagement.
Hamšík’s aura
Ševela is currently freelancing. He last worked in three clubs from Saudi Arabia. “But he is an interesting coach. After all, he won three titles in three years in Trenčín and Slovan, which few coaches achieve in their entire career. And by working in the Arab world, perhaps his economic outlook on this profession has changed.”
He mentioned Borbély as the fourth Gula, currently the coach of FC Riga. In the past, he worked in several interesting coaching destinations, leading Žilina, Dunajská Streda, Pilsen, Wisla Kraków, and Apollon Limassol, but nowhere did he rejoice in a league victory. Only last season in Latvia.
“It was in a less attractive country, but a title is a title. He has experience, he is close to several key players of the national team, so I think he is a real alternative,” added Borbély, before adding:
“Each of them would be a greater contribution to Slovak national football than what Calzona has offered in the last two years.”
Moravčík mentioned Weiss in particular, but added one more interesting name to him – Marek Hamšík.
“It’s no joke, I’m serious. Why not? It’s a personality? It is! He doesn’t have a lot of experience, but he has a huge football aura around him. Mainly so that he doesn’t choose Italian collaborators. (smile) Look at Vlad Weiss, how he’s brilliantly handling the fight for the title. He’s not even 85 yet.
But first of all, our options are limited, we can’t have ten million, give one of it to the national team coach, and we won’t have anything left for those who lead the youth. After all, it’s a disease when you think you’re good at something, but the truth is somewhere completely different. We have experts, let’s give them a chance. And let’s give a chance to the players in whom it will pulsate.”
However, according to Borbély, such an option would be a premature solution at the moment.
If we don’t advance, then…
Moravčík claims that he never had anything against Calzon, but he has his own opinion on negotiations with him and, above all, the conditions he gives himself regarding the organization of national football.
“That seems really funny to me. He would like to set something up, but all progress depends on how much money we have. You can’t even repair your house if you don’t have money. What are you going to do? You can just hug the water taps.
What good is it to talk about visions? He sets conditions for himself, while until now he had no idea that there was a category U 15. Suddenly he wants to solve it. It was a shot in the dark,” says Moravčík.
Although at the moment it seems that further cooperation with Calzona is over, we have to wait until next week, unless the Slovak Football Association makes an official statement.
“Although I personally think that for this set of union officials, sports expertise is secondary or tertiary. The primary interest is their personal pragmatic goals,” says Borbély.
“The commission should create an offer for the executive committee so that it can be concluded definitively. I mentioned four names, others and certainly not foreign ones, would not be a solution,” he thinks.
According to him, one thing is certain. It is said that the new coach will have an excellent opportunity to confirm that he will keep his place in the autumn League of Nations. “And if he can’t do it and we don’t progress, then we have to admit that Slovak national football is in big trouble,” added Borbély in conclusion.
