Discussing this topic, Norway come to mind. I had the opportunity to interview coach Thorir Hergeirsson in longer phone conversations a couple of times when he won the IHF Coach of the Year award, in 2015 and 2016, and he always referenced the complete staff of the team and federation when discussing their achievements. In particular, goalkeeper coach Mats Olsson and the assistant coach at that time Mia Hermansson Høgdahl — now Tonje Larsen.
Jelicic is not at all surprised by this collaborative approach from Hergeirsson, given Norway’s immense success — 30 medals won in the last 30 years, including eight European titles. Clearly, they have been doing a lot of things right.
Thinking back to Norway’s last title, won at the 2021 World Championship almost exactly one year ago, the team were behind 12:16 at half-time and France very much dominated the opening 30 minutes. But in the space of 10 minutes at the start of the second half, Norway turned the deficit into a 22:20 lead, and went on to take a 29:22 victory and with that their fourth world title.
A great collaboration between the team staff and across the federation, plus a lot of belief and confidence were surely required to pull that off.
“It’s something that is done on the individual level but also on the team level,” says Jelicic. “Working on the individual level concerning self-awareness, confidence, goals, and doing all that in parallel on the team level.”
Then, after all the work behind the scenes, the players must be able to see that way the coach — in this case Hergeirsson — acts during the match ties in with everything that has led up to that moment. “The verbalisations need to be compatible with his psychological messages, the energy that he has. He needs to approach them in a certain way that they can register and see and trust his decisions — his behaviour, his words, his plans. Of course, behind all that is also his experience.
“Building that trust level and the bond between them is something we can call a pillar. And the way he describes his collaborates, I’m sure that the team sees that and has been, let’s say, having in mind the work for some time now — the team has enjoyed that collaboration.”