Bruno Alpeza, the man behind Minifootball in Croatia who’s been with the EMF since it was formed, shares his thoughts with us about the Croatian Federation and what lies ahead.
– How has Minifootball changed since your first EMF EURO?
– My first experience as a participating country was in Moldova 2012. In that period of time minifootball has evolved rapidly. From a simple event in Moldova, we grew this game to a high standard of the event in the last 7 years. But not just the Euro is important, there are many issues that need to grow to maintain levels we want to have, helping members and making events that will stand on a firm base. We grew the project but now is the time to grow and develop properly the base and make minifootball a strong project on all levels.
– What’s your favorite memory of Croatia at these tournaments?
– There are a few, one is our trip to Moldova in 2012 together with the Slovenia and Slovakia national teams. It was the start of the project, budgets were small so we traveled for 10 hours or more through unknown parts of Romania and Moldova. Our bus driver got lost several times, so it was, to be mild, a very interesting trip. In the end arriving in the middle of the night, a few hours before the first match we played.
The second was the semi-final match with Russia in Crete 2013. After a regular time it was 1-1, an excellent match, two top teams, and the game was decided on penalties. Our first goalkeeper was injured during the match and was replaced with substitute Marko Habazin. In the end, he saved 2 penalties and took us to the final. We will never forget the run we made from the tribunes to the pitch. I still have this image in my head. This is why minifootball is such a beautiful game
– Do you think a coach who has played in major tournaments like the World Cup and European Championship has a greater influence on players?
– I think that this experience is important but not crucial. For sure it’s good to have a former star on the bench for PR and promotional benefit but will this person be 100% in and have max motivation. Sometimes an unknown coach can make a huge difference, a person who knows players and can “feel” them. But for sure a well-known coach will have respect of amateur players and is a good promo for the minifootball game and national team.
– Croatia disappeared for a year, what happened?
– Sometimes hard decisions have to be made in order to achieve bigger goals. That is exactly what we did. We had to sacrifice not participating in the EMF Euro 2018 Kyiv as a part of a longer term plan for minifootball development in Croatia. It is not easy to find a budget for participating on Euro each year, especially when you are in a smaller country where there is no “sponsor culture”. And we are still an amateur sport with professional sport costs.
– You won’t play at the WMF World Cup. Do you feel you missed out on something?
– We wanted to participate in the WMF World Cup in Australia, but we estimated that going to Australia could potentially damage our development in the future. It is not just a huge cost but also a long tournament for which our amateur players (all are working outside minifootball) could potentially not get so many days off. We have a 5-year plan for minifootball in Croatia and have already started making some new implementations. In September we’re starting preparations for Euro 2020.
It will be an amazing event in Perth, of course, we are sad not to be there as one of the strongest national teams in Europe, but sometimes hard choices have to be made. All the best to Australia Minifootball Federation and WMF in making the WMF World Cup the best so far
– Your next challenge is EMF Nations Games in Bosnia and Herzegovina, what can we expect from you? What is your task for this tournament?
– EMF Nation Games in Vitez are coming the week after our national championship finals, so it’ll give a chance for the best players there to have a possibility to play for Croatia in Vitez. We have our player base that we want to expand in the next 6 months, same was in Kyiv when we gave chance to many new players to feel what it was like playing for their country, experience that will be very important. So it will be in Vitez, we want to achieve a big result but also to use this opportunity to try many new things and make our team play better
– How do you select your National team, how can the average player from Croatia represent an entire Nation?
– Firstly, the player has to play in our competitions, has to have high human values and of course, has to be an excellent player. Any player who wants to play for Croatia minifootball team firstly has to sign a team to our events and then put in a great performance there. But also our team of staff looks for players around Croatia and alerts us when we find someone interesting.
– Tell us a little bit more about your upcoming National Championship.
– This will be a ninth championship in a row from 2012. We are growing each year slowly as the budget is allowing us. From 2012 over 2000 players were participating in the finals tournament, more than 10000 spectators and over 150000 people via live stream or TV. Last year we had over 30.000 spectators via live stream and hope to get more than 50.000 this year. On Friday we’ll have group stage matches and Saturday the playoffs, around 19 CET we will get a new Croatia minifootball champion. 15 people are working on the event plus staff at the location that will host us. Special thanks to Mr. Miroslav Petek who is a great minifootball supporter and helped us so much from the very beginning
– How many regions will participate?
– At the finals, 11 teams from 9 cities will participate, from almost all Croatian regions except Istria and Slavonia. Unfortunately one of the best minifootball clubs in Croatia, CB Kula, will not be able to participate. So we have 11 instead of 12 clubs. This is minifootball, amateur sport. CB Kula players work and couldn’t get time off for the event. All matches will be available via Livestream through our official Facebook page Hrvatski Mininogometni Savez and for the first time we’ll use the Rsportz app
– What are your plans for the near future?
– As I already mentioned, we established a long term 5-year plan, many new ideas to be implemented and we will work hard to achieve our goals. There will be many changes and upgrades of minifootball but all on a solid and firm base, nothing will be made without forward-thinking.