Interview with Nikolay Karpol

Nikolai Vasilyevich #NikolayKarpol, how much volleyball and the world changed for better and how much for worse in the last ten years?
- Volleyball hasn’t progressed. I’m talking about women's volleyball. Why is that? Because in these ten years we didn’t have much stars. Talented young players are not stars yet. For example, in the last World Championship, the best player was Sokolova, which was the best ten years ago as well. It’s the same with Gamova. There are no more setters like Kirillova was. And why is that? Because volleyball changed. Because rules of the game changed. To win a point today, rival has to make a mistake. It doesn’t matter where: in defense, offense or on serve. It’s all point. Before, to win a point, you had to defend yourself, and after defense you won a point with counter attack. That is very important. The game was more interesting, the ball was more time in the air, players were more concentrated, the old rules were better for audience too. Methodology of training changed as well. Once, games lasted three to four hours, now two. So, you need to train less, and if you train less, you play worse. Next, we started to play more and train less. We play national championship, Euroleague, Grand Prix. It’s all for money, for commercialization. In the end, volleyball rules changed because of commercialization and money from television advertising. Second, because of lot of games and not so much training, players are often injured. But, there is also a good stuff. Players are making much more money now.

How much is ‘much more’? How much are they making?
- Ten years ago men players in Italy could make USD 200-300.000. Today, women make USD 1.000.000. Next, it’s good that volleyball games are nowdays more often on television than before. Because of commercialization we got much more time on television and in newspapers. Unfortunately, quality of players decreased, and I can barely stand that. Strategy of volleyball development changed. Once, trainers’ primary job was creating players, and now teams’ result is the ultimatum. Manager buys players and trainers’ main job is to prepare the team of complete players, because you get them ready. So, before you had to select girls or a boys, make players of them, and then of players you have created on your own, make a team.

You are saying that volleyball is not the most important anymore because of profit? You can make profit with any players?
- Now, volleyball is the same as spectacle in theater. In theater, spectacle is made of actors. And who prepares actors? Faculties, academies. In volleyball that doesn’t exist, you don’t have that in volleyball. What are academies for actors, for players were teams. Through teams, coaches created and perfected players. Today you don’t have that any more. If coach devotes to developing players, he can lose couple of games and because of that he will be replaced. Some teams change two or three trainers during the season. To improve some players, trainer has to work systematically several years, many years. Now, trainers just throw the balls.

How do you like Chinese volleyball?
- They lost quality of trainers. Good ones went to America, Italy… Today, quality of trainers in national team and in clubs is not like it used to be.

How much volleyball has changed since China is wealthy country?
- What is wealthy country? Namibia is rich with diamonds. But who produces jewelry out of that diamonds? Europeans, Americans. Thus, there are many diamonds in China which should be abraded. Chinese clubs buy players like the rest of the wealthy. Of course. But, players in volleyball are not business like in soccer or hockey. Therefore, the sponsors in volleyball are more important than in soccer and sports in which you can make good money by trading players. Good thing in China is that country gives money for sports which is not the case elsewhere. Now, it’s capitalism in force, since in China sport can still live because of the rich sponsors.

Are you satisfied with spreading of volleyball across the world or you think that quality is still concentrated in few countries?
- As the quality concerns, volleyball is not spreading, but in geographical sense, it is spreading nicely.

If you would rule the volleyball world, what would you do to develop volleyball in every sense?
- That’s not issue for me. All these years, I’m not interested only in creating good players, but good people as well. My mission is teacher.

With which of your players are you the most proud? If you estimate result in sports and humanity, who would be your best player?
- It’s hard to say. There are lot of them. I can’t select one and I can’t recount them all. For thirty, forty years I create players and women which have kids, some players are already grandmothers. But if you insist… Radzelyich, captain of Uralochka and national team, Olympic champion. And other girls. My biggest success is that my players have children. I’m happy that many of my players were stars and they stayed human. They lived happy, they were happy. My duty was to make every training interesting, as well as every game. That was and that is my happiness in life. I won’t work much longer.

Is it even possible to leave coaching?
- It’s possible. Every year it’s harder for me to hold concentration, high concentration during whole season. There are many games and time and there is no time for rehabilitation. This job is pure stress, and to suffer stress from game to game being 73 or 75 years old is very hard. I still have strength. I will hold on. But, coach has to be more concentrated than players, and right now that is very hard for me. They are young…

What's your biggest mistake as a trainer? For what would you say ‘if I then had this knowledge’?
- I can’t talk about mistakes. I think there were mistakes, but not big mistakes. Maybe small ones, on trainings and on games, but not big ones.

Give an example.
- Maybe I had faith in players in which I shouldn’t have.

Confidence in them as players or as people?
- As players. Maybe I made mistakes in preparing games but I have never made mistake in preparing person to be a human.

What is the most important, what coach makes a coach? If now, in front of you, you have a man who wants to be a coach, what would you advise him, what is the most important, on what he has to pay the most attention in order to succeed?
- He has to love his players. If you don’t love your players, you’re not a pedagogue. You can be a boss but you need to be a pedagogue.