Kotoko was impatient with me – Zdravko Logarusic

Former Asante Kotoko coach, Zdravko Logarusic has opened up on his days at the club arguing that, the decision to sack him was borne out of impatience.

Logarusic, who is now the Head Coach of the Sudanese national team, told GTV’s Benjamin Willie Graham at the CHAN tournament in Morocco that, he came to Kotoko late and thus needed time to turn things around.

Zdravko Logarusic has led Sudan to the quarter-final of the CHAN competition. He believes that, he could’ve done well at Kotoko had the leadership of the club been patient with him especially when he didn’t recruit players and also had no time for pre-season work when he was brought in.

“I came without proper pre-season, all the players they signed had just started training. If you [didn’t] get proper pre-season, five, six or seven weeks, then you can’t play proper football because you [won’t] get power, you [won’t] get strength and stamina to play; you have to play the type of football that suits the team and the players” said Logarusic who started work at Kotoko on January 12, 2017 and was sacked on April 11, 2017.

“We didn’t play nothing attractive after 10 weeks [but] I was one point behind the leader and second position when I was fired. We still had lot of time for improvement. We were not far from the leader but there wasn’t much patience…I lost two games – one against Medeama and against Hearts of Oak with a dubious penalty. I came home, I lost points through dubious penalty [and] they jumped on me…”

The coach stressed that, there was no need for panic. “Sometimes you lose but when you are on the right track, with only three months together, in good position, [there’s] no reason to panic, but they decided to change. I’ve to follow their decision…They hired me, they fired me” he said.

Kotoko slipped deeper into the pit of poor performance after sacking Zdravko Logarusic, forcing him to ask his interviewer rhetorically, if the team did anything significant in the league after his dismissal.

“The point is, what is the success they made after me? Is it something spectacular? It’s nice but I think we needed a bit more time to stabilise everything and get good fundamentals for the next season…”

Zdravko Logarusic didn’t rule out the possibility of returning to Ghana.

“Of course. With the three sides [King Faisal, Ashgold and Kotoko], we made something nice. With Ashantigold we played the Confederation Cup and lost against Etoile Du Sahel. Why not?” he asked.

“I have nothing against coming back to Ghana again in the future. For me, with good program, with good offer, it can be Kotoko, Ashantigold or any other else. Any coach wants to coach in Ghana. If you are in Ghana and play in Africa it means you are a coach” he concluded.