Slaven Bilic: ‘People think coaching in Saudi Arabia is easy. It's not'

New York Times

21 hours ago

Slaven Bilic is at home in Croatia. It's the height of summer and in the background, down the phone line, birds are chirping under an afternoon sun as he describes what makes Croatian football special.
How it is that a country of fewer than four million people so consistently punches above its weight?
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'Obviously we have a lot talent,' Bilic says, 'but we have always really good at team sports. At basketball, water polo, handball. I think that's because we like to mix. We like to be out on the streets.
'In the parts of the country where many sportsmen come from the climate is good so our kids were always out. Maybe less and less nowadays, with social media, but we used to spend hours and hours outside.
'I'm a good judge of Croatian football because I played for the national team and coached it, and I think our players have a camaraderie that is underestimated. No matter who the manager is, the players are friends, not just colleagues. Even after international breaks end, most of them are still talking to each other.
'You can't analyse the effect of that. You can't measure it. But it's crucial.'
Bilic knows what he is talking about. He has had a rich career, full of experiences in different countries.
In its first act, he was the rugged centre-back who fortified West Ham and Everton in the 1990s and was part of a gifted Croatian national team that finished third at the 1998 World Cup.
In its second, aged just 37, he would coach the national team between 2006 and 2012, leading an era of renewal which saw a clutch of young players, including Luka Modric, Ivan Rakitic and Vedran Corluka, all of whom Bilic had coached at under-21 level, establish themselves as senior internationals.
In the years after, he embarked on a club career that zig-zagged across the world. Bilic has coached in Russia and Turkey, China and England. Most recently, he spent a year in charge of Al Fateh, in Saudi Arabia, a role he left in 2024 by mutual agreement.
So, much has happened over the last 20 years, but Bilic is still only 56 — still finding ways to grow and evolve, to develop as a coach. Asked what the most instructive part of his career has been, he pauses, draws a long breath, and reflects.
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'I don't think I can pinpoint a moment. My whole life has been connected to football and to the job that I'm doing now. Every coach who I've been coached by has had an influence, even if we're talking about Hajduk Split's academy back in the 1980s. I remember those coaches too and I still use some of their methods on a daily and weekly basis.
'How you talk to players. How you build a pre-season. It's all connected.
'And it's really helped me to see different cultures and different people. How hard you can train different players. How you change your sessions for players of different abilities and climates. When you go from China to Saudi Arabia, you can't just copy and paste. How can you make sure they have time for prayer? There are all sorts of differences.
'But I think, at this stage of my career, that knowledge and experience has me better prepared than ever.'
After leaving the Croatia national team in 2012, Bilic coached — in order — Lokomotiv Moscow, Besiktas, West Ham, Al Ittihad, West Bromwich Albion, Beijing Guoan, Watford and Al Fateh. Each job brought a new environment with different obstacles and new problems to solve.
'The Premier League brings out the best of you. Tactically. Everything. The whole world is watching and you're facing unbelievable coaches and players.
'But some people think that coaching in Saudi Arabia is easy — and it's not. The level is not the Premier League — that's right — but as a coach there is still a big challenge.
'First of all, you're under pressure because football is very big there. Second, 80 per cent of the players on some of the teams are from foreign countries, and they're good players, most of them could play in Europe, but then you have to field three domestic players, too. Some of them are very good, but others are not on quite the same level.
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'What many clubs do is put those domestic players in full-back positions, or sometimes in midfield. The league — the clubs, the fans — they want to see stars and the stars are wingers and forwards.
'So, it means that — let's say — your left back has to face the right winger. He has to face Sadio Mane or Riyad Mahrez. He has to face unbelievably good players. Your weakest link is playing against one of their strongest. To make it worse, your left winger might be a really good player, but perhaps he doesn't want to help your full-back defensively.
'Your job is to find a solution. Actually, you have to be more creative in many situations in Saudi than you do in England.'
Bilic likes the detail in football. The humanity of it. He's engaging and interesting to talk to, in a way that perhaps was never able to rise above the Premier League din. Even now, he sounds like he is still tussling with the game's finer points.
Not with his preferred style, though. That he is clear on.
'I always want my teams to play good football. Or to be able to play good football. I'm not talking about system. I want to put as many players who are good on the ball on the pitch at the same time. If my teams can be dangerous, then they have a chance.
'The rest is my job. To make that team defend. To make them solid, to make them organised and to make them run.
'That's what me and my assistants have tried to do all my career. When I was with Croatia, my midfield was Niko Kranjcar, Ivan Rakitic and Luka Modric, but with Niko Kovac (a more defensive midfielder) behind.
'At West Ham, the midfield was Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini. Not one of them — both. It would be suicidal if you let them play without organisation and without responsibility. But that's my job. I'm going to convince them to do the dirty work and to enjoy it.
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'You have to be dangerous. It helps defensively, too, if you have more possession. And every player likes to be in a good environment like that. When you have players like Rakitic and Modric, or Payet, they make the less talented players around them better. They put them in better positions. They can help their confidence in important games and makes them better players. It's stops them shrinking.
'The way I think about football is that all of that is connected.'
For Premier League fans, Bilic is entwined with Payet and a glorious run of form. The mercurial French midfielder was a riddle when he arrived at West Ham in 2015, but in Bilic's system, during the final season at Upton Park, he produced arguably the best football of his career and a highlight reel that never grows old.
'When a situation like that with Dimi happens,' Bilic says, 'you can easily think, 'Oh, this is me and nobody has ever thought of doing this or that before'. And I'm not underestimating myself, I was a part of it, but he was like a surfer catching a wave at the right time.
'A few weeks before he joined us, his wife gave birth to their third son, so it was probably a very good atmosphere at home. And then he came to a club like West Ham, where they were chanting his name, he jumped on that wave and stayed there.
'Our first away game was against Arsenal. We won 2-0. Our second away game was Liverpool. We beat them 3-0. Third away game: Manchester City — we beat them 2-1. All with him starring and, suddenly, there was talk about him getting a call-up to the French national team. It all helped and he never looked back.
'Maybe that all started with his good situation at home? But I've had the opposite, too. Where me and my staff have spent hours and hours talking, thinking and analysing, trying to work out why a player has had a dip, and not being able to find a reason. And then I would find out later about big issues off the pitch.
'Sir Alex Ferguson used to know everything. He knew a player's parents, he knew their girlfriends, he knew everything about them. It's not like that as much anymore. Sometimes you find out things months later, that you had no idea of at the time.'
Bilic is a positive coach. An optimistic one. Perhaps that is reflected best in his attitude towards young players and how to use them. 'I've never afraid to put young players in the team. That hasn't changed,' he says. 'I did it with Modric, I did it with Rakitic. I did with (Vedran) Corluka, Eduardo and Declan Rice. Or Grady Diangana, when he was on loan from West Ham (at West Brom).
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'I like young players because they are like sponges with information. Second, they are not afraid of making mistakes. They think positively. Always they think that the glass is half full. And they bring an energy that is unbelievable to a team and to training.
'But the game is like life. It lasts 90 minutes and during that time you have your crucial moments and your turbulence. But young players don't need older players' experience when everything is going well. But when they have conceded a goal or during a period when the opponent is better than them — when they get punched — that's when they need their safe houses.
'That's why ideally, if we talk about my time with national team, then yes you want Modric, Kranjcar and Rakitic, but also with Niko Kovac. The metronome. The stable player who can help them when they need help on the pitch. The safe house.'
This is the game through Slaven Bilic's eyes: football as life.
It's not clear what's next yet. Nothing has grabbed him since Al Fateh and he wants to believe wholeheartedly in a project. Wherever that may be, attacking football will be at its heart and young players with their restless energy will be its soul.
After 20 years, the sense of adventure in one of the game's great travellers is still what it has always been.