After talking to Branko Nenadic (Olimpija Karlovac) and Ivan Racic (Nada SSM Split), Goran Supraha did another interview with a Croatian head coach. Neven Marinic of BK Zagreb was so kind to answer a few questions for Mister-Baseball.com.
Goran Supraha: May you say something about your career; playing and coaching, education…
Neven Marinic: My baseball story begins at 1989 and from then I did not miss any season, I play for Baseball Club Zagreb for 22 years. My generation was best in younger categories for long time, than I join senior team with 16, that year we win Croatian cup (1994) but for title we need to wait for five more years. That year we took double crown-Croatian Cup and Championships.
As, we could say “forever second” in Croatian championships we played on many European cups and one of my favorite is winning CEB cup in Prague in 2005.
When I talk of my appearance for national team, I played as junior and senior; as senior I had difficulties to fall in, because I play outfielder, and competition on that position was very strong.
However I did collect some appearance in senior national team and my biggest success was winning first place at qualifier 2006 in Antwerp, Belgium, and playing at European Championship in Barcelona 2007.
I started coaching 10 years ago. First I was coach for juveniles, later with cadets and finally with seniors. This is my second season as senior coach team. My first season as senior coach was in 2008 and I have won a triple crown with my team: Cup, Championship and Inter league, as well as 7th place at CEB competition.
As far as education goes, I have attend international coaching seminars which are last few years held in our country; however, the biggest and the most valuable experience for coaching comes from 22 seasons of active playing baseball, which I played in every age categories. Through these years I had chance to work and play with some of leading experts who were in charge of rising baseball in Croatia on higher level: Jimmy Summers, Jeff Calderone, Mike Hartmann, Ernesto Pereira, Tetsuhiro Monna, Carlos Tovar, Jason Pospishil, Steve Szabo,Bill Percy…
GS: Croatian baseball use to see Zagreb winning titles, but after winning triple crown in 2008 (Croatian Champions, Croatian cup winner and Inter league champions) last two years was disappointingly (both times finish forth), what happened last two years…
NM: As well as other clubs in Croatia, we are faced with problem of relay of players; off course we can’t ignore the financial problems also, because we are competing in all four categories and we don’t have constant financial source, as far as sponsors goes.
Concerning that two, very important logistics facts, our result is real and we must be happy for having chance to compete in all 4 categories on state level.
GS: After good start in first part of season (autumn 2010) you have score 3:1, what you expect from your team at spring 2011….
NM: At spring we expect to continue with good results because we have some refreshments in our team and few younger players now have chance to verify themselves and chance to fight for place in first team. Our main goal, for this season, is entrance in play off and winning Croatian Championship.
GS: Zagreb is big city (over million people) and have 4 clubs, is that advantage or defect for your club and why…
NM: In spite of fact that Zagreb is a city with over a million people, unfortunately baseball is not a very popular sport; we have only one stadium in city which is in use for four Zagreb baseball teams and softball team.
I think that that is a main problem for all Zagreb clubs, but we can’t ignore all other problems which are related with this one: finances, baseball schools, deficit of coaches…
That situation is not good because it doesn’t leave too much space for progress and development of Baseball culture in Zagreb.
GS: May you give your view on last year national team poor” performance in Germany, and what we may expect from them this summer in Zagreb on Qualifier for European Championship in Holland 2012.
NM: Since, almost all, clubs in Croatia now have young players in their senior teams, the same situation is in national team also. I think that bad result of our national team is current situation of Croatian baseball. Considering fact that European teams have all basic resources for quality work, such as finance, stadiums, players, coaches etc, it’s going to be very hard to accomplish good result.
But, as well as last few years, I am assured that our national team will manage to win a qualification group and try to catch their best result on European championship in Netherlands in 2012.