DAVID DAVIS

DAVIDAVIS

Coach Telekom Veszprém

The ability to react, to adapt and resilience have always been highly valued and to some extent essenNal qualiNes in the profile of a handball coach. It is clear that not even the best planning in the world is capable of controlling the random effect of injuries and structural crises fuelled by results that are difficult to explain, but one can count on that. Somehow, the fragility of our sporNng structure, with finances held by strings in most of the clubs and unprofessionalised direcNves, trains you in improvisaNon, survival and daily work. The job and the salary go with it. Coaches, at least in theory, have the weapons to plan transfers according to different calendars and also to design strategies against injuries, the millimetric organisaNon of physical preparaNon, the most complex tacNcs and the most versaNle systems of play. In short, a great arsenal. Yet we never visualised how to deal with a pandemic. Who could do it?

In Hungary, confinement to curb the Coronavirus also came in mid-March 2020. The closing of borders, the educaNon system at home and the limitaNon of social, economic and commercial acNviNes from levels of contagion much lower than in countries like Spain ensured that the first wave broke without major casualNes or damage beyond economic shreds. We will only know this with the passage of Nme, which has not been long.

HANDBALL IN PANDEMIC

COMPETING AGAINST THE UNCERTAINTY

At that time, national and international competitions were suspended without anyone being clear about the consequences or the outcome. With that degree of uncertainty and the limitations of the closure - which did not allow the use of sports facilities or team work - physical preparation to at least maintain fitness levels became a priority. I like to remember how all club members joined forces to deal with a highly stressful situation in which fear management in the face of an unknown health threat was mixed with the unpredictable economic effects.

Each player received a personalised exercise plan from our physical trainer, just as the nutritionist provided the necessary dietary advice to compensate for the elimination of competition and training routines. The predisposition of the athletes was absolute. They all got the necessary equipment to work out at home and set up their own home gym, whether in the living room, terrace, garden or car park, and each day they sent in videos of their sessions so that their activity could be followed. Many were posted on social media and served to keep in touch with our fans. In addition, as every cloud has a silver lining, the new reality allowed the injured to "gain" time for their recovery. The most difficult thing to manage, in my opinion, was - and still is now - that in the end nobody can foresee what will happen even in the short term and working like this is certainly a challenge. Maintaining the concentration that comes with the pace of competition is very difficult under such extraordinary conditions. If a national team break already throws the team dynamics out of kilter, we now know that a pandemic turns everything upside down.

In parallel, the club worked Nrelessly to collaborate and coordinate with all relevant naNonal and internaNonal bodies. Incredible as it may seem, it is not so easy to align the interests of federaNons, leagues and clubs. For my part, as a coach, my body was asking me to seek alliances. Pandemic aside, I firmly believe in the need to weave support networks that allow us to defend and strengthen professional handball beyond permanent and individualisNc personal compeNNon. I sNll believe this, now more consistently, when this plague of the 21st century has brought to light some of the shames that cover up the day to day. With this idea in mind, I pulled out my diary and contacted other coaches, quite a few. In my head was the idea of establishing common lines of acNon, of agreeing on Nmetables, of proposing alternaNves, new soluNons to a new problem. Not all of them were equally recepNve, I must confess, but for me personally it helps me to know what others are doing and how they are experiencing the same situaNon. Maybe that comforts me. To give just one example, I found it essenNal to know what medical advice was offered in the different countries to resume acNvity when designing control protocols: what health security measures to take, tesNng schedules, confinement Nmes in case of posiNve results, travel... I won't go into details, but there were abysmal differences.

Locked up at home, Nme moves forward and becomes like chewing gum; the brain, a licle too. With such an undefined scenario, we decided that those players who wanted to could travel to their home countries unNl there were firm decisions regarding the compeNNon. Many preferred to stay in Hungary because the situaNon was less serious here. We resumed training with them in the hall from May onwards, when the restricNons were relaxed. By then it was clear that the naNonal compeNNon was definitely cancelled and we did not consider that the players abroad would return.

HANDBALL IN PANDEMIC

COMPETING AGAINST THE UNCERTAINTY

What remained to be seen was what would happen in the Champions League. With different opNons in the calendar, we knew the excepNonal soluNon of finalising the matches and qualifying the top two teams from groups A and B for the Final4, among which we managed to qualify on merit. It is never fair to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game, but never before have we competed against a pandemic. Beyond the criNcism of those clubs that were lef out and lost their chances, which I understand, I prefer to think about the need to take difficult decisions at very difficult Nmes to save what really macers. And I would like to think that I would feel the same way even if I had been lef out of the Final Four. Today, a year afer all this started, the EHF has changed the rules again to plug the gap lef by the eliminaNon of matches for Covid and has abolished the direct pass to the quarter-finals for the top two teams in each group. Afer overcoming many obstacles with great effort and investment, we lose our incenNve. But this Nme we have not heard the loud protests about the back-and-forth. Only FC Barcelona has raised its voice about the "injusNce". I guess the lesson is the same as always. In any case, then we had to adapt once again and if our goal each year is to win each and every compeNNon in which we parNcipate, the 2020/21 season offered us the challenge of fighNng for two Final4s in six months. The other side of the coin has been suffered by those players who changed teams and who, at best, had to face their former teammates or, at worst, watch the games from their new desNnaNon. That is another macer.

In addiNon to the sporNng aspect, the club analysed different possible scenarios on a financial level. The objecNve is always to guarantee survival, and for this it was essenNal to update the budget to take into account the reducNon in income due to the lack of box office and merchandising at the Arena and the loss of television rights. Given the unpredictability of the situaNon, the payroll was temporarily revised. We also analysed the transfer forecast, and even talked about a possible "non-aggression pact" between clubs to avoid the "plundering" of those clubs most affected financially by the pandemic. By now, with a lot of cards already turned upside down, we are learning more about the real effects on budgets and we see that the main market has not fundamentally changed. June has arrived and what we can all agree on is that holidays have never been more necessary.

Afer an atypical summer in which it seemed that the pandemic granted a truce, we decided to start the preseason two weeks earlier than usual. It was clear to us that we had to start very slowly and progressively to avoid injuries afer four months without compeNNon. The players had been given an individualised plan to prepare for the return to training so it was relaNvely easy to see who had done their homework. It was inevitable to start pracNcally from scratch with tacNcs. Incredible as it may seem, five months without compeNNon causes a total disconnecNon, a kind of reset that I couldn't believe and forced us to repeat training at a level we could never have imagined. It is not a quesNon of looking for someone to blame, but rather of explaining and reflecNng on what we have lived and experienced over the last year. As a result, we ruled out travel training camps and scheduled our pre-season games at home. Unfortunately, our first posiNve case of Covid ruined the tribute to Lazlo Nagy, Momir Ilic and Árpad Sterbik, a clash against Kiel that was intended to open the season in style. It was the trailer for the season.

HANDBALL IN PANDEMIC

COMPETING AGAINST THE UNCERTAINTY

With masks, with distance, with reduced seaNng capacity... The public was able to acend the games unNl November, when the evoluNon of the incidence set off all the alarms and forced the closure of the pavilions to the fans once again. The second wave was more like what we had seen in the rest of Europe. To this day we conNnue to play with empty stands. It's not true that you get used to silent matches. Anyone who has acended a match at the Veszprém Arena can understand what I am trying to explain. Something similar happens in many other handball arenas all over Europe. UnNl mid-February the relaxaNon of restricNons was planned for Easter, but the dizzying spike in cases that has come along with the new variants once again complicates any plans. It seems that the third wave is beginning.

In that sense, nothing has changed. Since September, monitoring the pandemic has been an obstacle course. We have tried to learn every day and incorporate all the scienNfic recommendaNons that became known as the research progressed. Masks, anNgen tests, PCRs, charter flights, social bubbles, confinements, quaranNnes, venNlaNon, cleaning... The financial and human effort of the club has been and conNnues to be enormous, mainly because everything can change from one day to the next. Matches cancelled due to posiNve results in teams that force more matches to be cancelled and opponents to be quaranNned. And you can't know at what point the posiNve will be triggered or if someone else incubates the disease. Not all clubs are able or willing to make the same efforts. Not all people are up to the task.

I am sorry to say that as the pandemic has progressed I have noticed more irresponsible attitudes in the competition, more opacity and lies, less willingness to collaborate or simply to share information. In my opinion, this way of doing things is a burden and a vision that is as pactful as it is detrimental to our sport, which is further weakened by these unconstructive strategies.

Perhaps most frustrating is the weakness of competition protocol at both national and international level and the lack of informed criteria. With improvised and too often irrational or unjustified calendars, without controls or guarantees. With different regulations depending on the country or directly on the will of each club when it comes to setting quarantine times or new tests in the event of positive results, etc. The result is quite discouraging, but above all it is a lack of respect for the professionals who run the risk on the track.

The effects of a positive result on the team cannot be ignored. In Hungary, if a player is infected, he must have a minimum recovery time of six weeks, and he must also pass physical tests to ensure his health to avoid undesirable scares that have been detected in the sporting world since the pandemic began. Until they pass these tests, they cannot return to training, even in the gymnasium on an individual basis, so they may be out of action for a period of time similar to that of the summer holidays. There is no need for me to explain how this break translates into concentration, synchronisation of the team's play or balance in the squad. At Telekom Veszprém we have been hit by the Coronavirus several times. Even with all the precautions, but also thanks to them, we have managed to isolate the positive cases and get out of the vicious circle that we have seen in other teams, where the positives are appearing "slowly but surely" in a dynamic that stifles the team's concentration the wardrobe. HANDBALL IN PANDEMIC

COMPETING AGAINST THE UNCERTAINTY

We manage to dodge mortal blows, but it is impossible to escape unscathed. I love explanaNons, context and nuance, and I hate excuses, because what is true is that we all face the pandemic: the constant stress, the sudden changes, the unexpected casualNes. This year more than ever is excepNonal. We arrived in December in good shape despite everything. As luck would have it, we spent the week before the F4 in quaranNne and some of our players had to stay at home without playing the games that push us throughout the season, the biggest punishment you can imagine. SNll, we came, we competed, we fought. And the result is water under the bridge. All defeats hurt, but that's another story.

Directly from Cologne, most of our players travelled to their naNonal team's training camp for the World Cup in Egypt. Alongside the work at home with those who were lef out of the squad, our main concern during the month of January, as always, was the injury-free return of all athletes. The tournament has exposed the evils of the pandemic. Very complicated journeys. Uncontrolled controls. Teams without rhythm or preparaNon, with hardly any training or matches. Let's be opNmisNc. It has also shown how wonderful our sport is, with a high level of compeNNon and excitement despite the obstacles.

The return afer the World Cup is never easy. This year was not going to be any less, of course. But we follow our plans, our controls, our work. We are waiNng for the vaccines like everyone else. And hopefully we will soon be able to see the end of the nightmare. With an audience.

HANDHEARTBALL / EDITORIAL

THANKS TO ALL

JOSE RAMON BELDAD ALVARO DE LARA

We would like to thank all the parNcipants who have collaborated selflessly in this your magazine, as you know, it began to take shape in a summer night, where we wrote down the first ideas, we conNnued with the notes and began to work on its first issue published in October 2020, since then unNl now every 15th of each month we have been able to bring you the magazine with countless arNcles of our sport (acack, defense, counteracack, retreat, goalkeeping, decision making, training, nutriNon, physiotherapy, psychology, interviews with players, xps, mini handball, beach handball,....... ) to acquire more knowledge and be able to put it into pracNce with our players.

But this magazine is made with a great sacrifice and effort, two inseparable values of our sport, also we assume it with a great humility and a good working environment, between two passionate of this sport.

Everyone knows the richness of handball as a collecNve sport of opposiNon and collaboraNon, but the most important thing about this sport of ours is that all of us who love it, share our teachings for its growth and for it to be valued as it deserves.

We hope you enjoy this special volume, for us it has been spectacular, to maintain a relaNonship with all the parNcipants and to be able to "learn" and "publish" so that all of you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed making it.