Slaven on the cover with an interview inside the free magazine given out at tube stations today
“Be yourself. Don’t pretend. And don’t lie”
Slaven Bilic on his return to West Ham and the influences that have shaped his approach to football management
Honesty and optimism are, to Sport’s eye, two character traits that have seen Slaven Bilic graduate from successful player to successful manager. He exudes both as we sit across from him at his desk in his office at Upton Park.
The Croatian has enjoyed his start in charge at West Ham, he tells us, but adds that “it’s all connected to the results”. Those results have included beating Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea so far; his team sit sixth in the table, level on points with Tottenham, who they visit on Sunday.
It all bodes well for West Ham’s final season at Upton Park. And their future away from the old ground. If one of Bilic’s players wanted to one day follow him in taking the hot seat as the Hammers’ manager, we ask, what one piece of advice would he give them?
“Don’t lie to the players,” he says. “That’s the number-one thing. Because they will find out. The most important thing is to stick to your word and be honest with them. Sometimes it may turn up [appear that] that you are not sticking to your word, but you can stick to your word. That’s the most important advice I would give to someone who wants to become a manager.”
Bilic had been linked with West Ham, where he spent a season and a half in the mid- 1990s, for several years before he eventually took the job last summer. After spending six years as coach of Croatia, he had a short but unsuccessful stint at Lokomotiv Moscow before taking charge of Besiktas in Turkey. Two years after that, and 16 years after leaving Everton as a player, he is back in England.
“The people in my country – because I played here, from 1996 to ’99 – they consider me a big Anglophile,” he explains. “And on one hand it’s true. I like the music, I like the humour, I like the sitcoms, I like the adverts. I just like it. I like the way of living. I love England; I love London. But, to be fair, I didn’t come here because of that. I came here because the football feeling was right to me.
“But it is the same for 99 per cent of all managers. Everyone would like to work in the Premier League. But I wasn’t by my phone waiting for a call, or whatever. To be fair, I could have come here earlier. But I didn’t feel it was the right time. So I wasn’t dying to come here, but it was definitely part of my ambition.”
Honest people
Sport is never afraid to ask the obvious question: why was returning to West Ham and to the Premier League an ambition for Bilic?
“In my football career, I played for a few clubs,” he says. “I felt good in every one of them… I had great memories as a player here. And so to have the privilege first of all to come to your club, and that club is in, you don’t have to say the best league in Europe, but the best stage in Europe, considering everything: the popularity, the worldwide attention. It’s a big privilege and an honour.”
Bilic says he feels good to be back at the Boleyn Ground, although he arrived with fond memories of his time in Turkey:
“If you ask me: ‘Do I enjoy it more here than in Turkey?’ It is impossible to enjoy it more than I enjoyed it in Turkey, my two years there. Everything: football club, people, lifestyle. Everything.”
Bilic spent two seasons with Besiktas, guiding them to consecutive third-place finishes in the Super Lig. When Bilic left Istanbul in June, Besiktas supporters met him at the airport to say goodbye. They carried him on their shoulders and presented him with a T-shirt that said, in Croatian: ‘Farewell, grand commander.’
“It was a good connection with the fans,” says Bilic. “It’s a massive club; it’s not just a football club, it’s more a way of living – a religion. And it is a really special club. And the fans are, too. It was a good relationship. Turkish people are very honest people.”
Bilic kept his team honest, too, despite them playing away from home for the entire campaign while the club’s new stadium was being built. Besiktas were in contention for the title alongside richer rivals Galatasaray and Fenerbahce until the final weeks of the season. They also beat both Tottenham and Liverpool on their way to the Europa League’s round of 16.
“We were playing our home games in Ankara, which is like us [West Ham] playing in Manchester,” Bilic explains. “Flying every couple of days – we didn’t have a home ground. Basically, I didn’t achieve the ultimate goal for Besiktas. We didn’t win the league. Okay, there are many reasons why it was still successful, but I didn’t make it here. But still they were happy with me and my staff, considering everything we did – on the pitch and off the pitch – for the club. All that in a space where we didn’t have a stadium.”
New beginnings
As a player, Bilic’s international career began shortly after Croatia had established itself as a country in its own right. But the break-up of Yugoslavia and Croatia’s fight for independence meant it was caught up in a series of political upheavals and bitter conflicts during the early 1990s.
Taking charge of teams building new stadiums must surely pale in significance to representing a country whose football team built itself from the ground up. “We started at Euro 96,” says Bilic. “It was the first tournament after the war [the Croatian War of Independence]. So at that time it was more than football to the people.
We were a new country. A lot of people didn’t know where Croatia is, to be fair. And then they were calling us, like, ambassadors of Croatia, football, and everything.
“We started [in] 1993, I think, but we were not allowed to play qualification games for the World Cup in the USA, because of the war and all that. Then we were hungry, we had a good team, and we passed those qualifications for Euro 96 quite... not easy, but we topped the group with Italy [beating the Italians in Palermo] and all that. And then we came here [to England] and we were dark horses because of all those players.”
That first Croatia team would go on to finish third at the World Cup in France in 1998. Does the way they played have any effect on how Bilic wants his teams to play as a manager?
“Definitely,” says Bilic. “Because that national team was a big part of my career. Especially because we were the first Croatian team that was playing in a big tournament.
“Most of us, we played abroad anyway, but a few of them like [Davor] Suker played for Real Madrid, [Zvonimir] Boban played for Milan, [Alen] Boksic played for Juventus or Lazio. But we were inexperienced playing for a national team in a big tournament. We reached the quarter finals, lost against Germany 2-1 in Manchester. And after the defeat we realised: ‘We are really good.’ Unfortunately, sometimes you need a defeat to realise how good you are.”
Does Bilic have a stand-out memory from his time playing for Croatia?
“It’s the game against Germany in World Cup ’98,” he says. “They were European champions from two years before. And it was a great game – a 3-0 game. And after that game you know at least you are going to be fourth; you’re in the semi finals. And then the game for the third spot. It’s games like that that stick with you as the best.”
The Modric mould
Bilic says that side is still held up in Croatia as the benchmark for the current national team’s ambitions.
“It was ages ago,” he says. “But it stays with us still. Like, Croatia now has a good team, with players like [Real Madrid’s] Luka Modric, [Barcelona’s Ivan] Rakitic, [Inter Milan’s Ivan] Perisic now they are playing in maybe better clubs than when we played. But it is always trying to compare them with us.”
Sport compares that style of player – intelligent ball players such as Modric, who played under Bilic for Croatia – to the talent at his disposal at West Ham. There would seem to be several players in claret and blue – Manuel Lanzini, Mauro Zarate and Dimitri Payet, to name but three – who fit that mould. Is that the style of player Bilic likes?
“Definitely,” he says. “But Luka is – you can call him unique, because he is good in everything. He is a defender also. He is a responsible guy. No matter how good he is individually, first and foremost he is a team player. The reason I like him and that kind of player is that he never puts himself above the team. He is always available; he makes all the players around him better. And I simply love those kind of players.”
Who, we ask, is most similar to the Madrid midfielder at West Ham?
“It’s Lanzini. I’m not talking about the quality now. Our best player is Dimitri Payet. He is the man. He’s number 10, but he’s also doing the dirty work. But we are trying to protect him. And Lanzini is also defending; he is there when the left-back has the ball, when the right-back has the ball. So he reminds me a lot of Luka. We have many good players, but one man stands out in our team – that’s Payet.”
The French midfielder might be West Ham’s player of the season so far, but he will miss the next three months after picking up an ankle injury in the 1-1 draw with Everton a fortnight ago. Are his side going to miss him?
“We aren’t going to cry, but of course we’re going to miss him,” says Bilic. “It’s impossible for us to replace him. We’re going to replace him, but in a different way.”
A different way
We often read that Bilic has a degree in law, and is a talented musician. That being the case, we suggest there might have been a time before football when he might have followed a different path. Not so.
“It was always football, to be fair,” says Bilic. “I love music, and I was good at school from primary school up. And to my parents it was logical that I went to university. But although my father was a professor at the university of economy and law, of course he wanted me to be a football player, because he was football mad. But because of my mother, and because I was good in school, I said: ‘Let’s try both.’ But I knew from the start what I wanted. And that was always football.”
And what of the guitar? Bilic says music was and is a very important part of his life – for both relaxation and motivation:
“Okay, when I was a kid of course I was dreaming of becoming, I don’t know, Angus Young [lead guitarist and songwriter for AC/DC], or later Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Metallica. Of course you are, you love it. And I learned to play guitar, but I was nowhere near that good like I was in football. In football, I was not top-top-top, but I was good enough. I’m a very average guitar player. A less-thanaverage guitar player. People talk like: ‘He’s very talented,’ like you said also, but I’m not.
“I’m not,” he says again. “But I like it.”
Realistically optimistic
Bilic is still a good student. He talked at a press conference prior to West Ham’s win over Chelsea about some of the books that have influenced him. He singles out one by Phil Jackson, in which the 11-time NBA titlewinning coach – who managed the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers – reveals his secrets:
“Sacred Hoops [subtitled Spiritual Lessons as a Hardwood Warrior]. But there are a few of them that are basically brilliant. Brilliant. And I learnt a lot from them. I don’t know if you call him a guru or whatever, but he’s the man, you know? And then from NFL – a lot of books.” Bilic says Premier League football can learn lessons from an NFL team’s structure:
“They have a staff of I don’t know how many coaches, how many players, how many teams; a team for defense, a team for offense... and to be on top of that and have everything under control and, on the other hand, to make all the people feel happy. They have to feel important in their role. And to let them do their job and have full responsibility – to be in charge for that part.
“It’s all about the people. It’s the same, whether you are a bank manager or a leader of whatever group – you are dealing with people. They are the same rules. Just here we are dealing with footballers.”
And what of Bilic himself? Honesty aside, what other rules does he live by?
“I’m always trying to be realistically optimistic,” he replies. “Always be positive. Always be optimistic. Because if you are not optimistic, how can your players be?”
Slaven Bilic spoke on behalf of Betway, official principal sponsor of West Ham United. Betway are an online sports betting operator, offering more than 30,000 markets live and in-play across a huge range of sports
