“They are stuck in the old, it’s very strange things”
Henrik Signell took South Korea’s women to the Olympics on Wednesday morning after a drama against Japan and he thus gets to keep his job.
Here he talks openly and critically about the interpreter who knows nothing about handball, wifi that turns off in the evening, pointless morning gymnastics and the godfather who controls everything.
– It’s going to be a hell of an adventure, says Signell in a big interview about the culture clashes.
When Henrik Signell was hired last spring as the new captain of South Korea’s women’s handball team, the contract was only signed over the Olympic qualifiers in August and he really only knew one thing: the last match in the qualifying group against Japan would decide everything – whether the team would go to the Olympics and whether he would get to keep the job for another year.
That’s exactly how it was before the match against Japan this morning Swedish time.
South Korea and Japan are outstanding in handball in Asia and both teams had won their matches overwhelmingly against the other teams in the qualifiers played last week in Hiroshima, Japan.
South Korea is the classic superpower that has never missed an Olympics on the women’s side, reaching at least the semi-finals in eight consecutive Olympics from 1984 to 2012, with gold in 1988 and 1992 as the highlights. Japan is the upstart, having finished ahead of its “big sister” in the last two world championships, which in turn has regressed significantly in the last ten years.
Now it would be decided. A draw was enough for Japan as they gained a better goal difference.
With five minutes remaining it was tied but the Koreans were able to win the drama 25-24 in the end.
– This was really cool. Everything is so different here, so it’s going to be a helluva adventure of everything with short notice, long camps and a new culture, says Signell when Sportbladet catches up with him after the victory rush has subsided somewhat.
WiFi is turned off overnight
We understand that things are different over there when the 47-year-old former Swedish national team captain, who coached IFK Skövde in the men’s league for three years until last spring, talks about the preparations and the culture clashes.
Signell, and his assistant Erik Larholm and physical trainer Anton Claesson, went over to South Korea on May 10 and since then they have been in camp in a large training center in South Korea with a lot of other sports and athletes from the country who loaded up for the Asian Games, a kind of Asian Olympics which is very big in this part of the world and is held in September.
– We had 2.5 weeks off when we could go home to Sweden. Otherwise, we have been lying there at the center, which is like a small Olympic village, until we went here for the qualifiers. There are fantastic facilities, all new technology, good food and all that. The center used to be centrally located in Seoul, but now it is out in the bush because they want the players to do nothing but focus on their sport. For example, WiFi is switched off at 23.30 and switched on again at 06.00. Three days a week you have to get up at 6.10 in the morning and do gymnastics for nine minutes on a football field. There is a woman standing there doing some morning gymnastics. Of course, it doesn’t do anything, but it’s just to keep the athletes awake. These are very strange things that are fascinating and interesting at the same time.
“A lot of quantity but no quality”
During these months, Signell has realized why South Korean handball has not kept up with the world’s best in the last decade.
– Japan is on the rise and has been for quite some time. They have players in Europe and they have been in camps in Hungary and so on. But Korea has stood still. They are stuck in the old and have not been as humble for change and not as wise in realizing that they have actually fallen behind.
– Japan has really stepped up, while Korea has stood still and is stuck in its tracks. We have met a lot of committees and many coaches in Korea but there is no one who has shown any curiosity about how we think, how we look at handball or why we do what we do. If you want to get better, everything here is about training more, training harder, sweating more, running longer and lifting heavier. There is a lot of quantity but there is no quality in things. They are not strong. When we have running tests or physical tests, they are far behind Swedish players who train much less but train correctly. I don’t know how much they understand about it. We have a goalkeeper coach who is an elderly woman who comes up with a bunch of creative exercises that she found on social media. But the goalkeepers here need to work on the basics and not do exercises with balloons and other weird stuff.
He continues:
– There are quite a lot of shortcomings in training, development and organization. You simply run out of players in club teams. The association and the clubs are not in sync. Then there is an age hierarchy in the country where the oldest are automatically wise and wise. This is also the case in handball. It is the older players who talk and communicate on the pitch. In the handball I was brought up in, we emphasize that we are a team where it is important that everyone tells us how they want it and communicates with each other. If I ask a young player anything here, she won’t even answer. She looks at the elders, waiting for some kind of guidance from them.
How is the language?
– I have learned many handball terms in Korean. But we have an interpreter who doesn’t know handball at all. He probably hasn’t played sports at all. And to then try to put him in different situations – it’s bound to cause misunderstandings. You have learned that you unfortunately cannot provide any amount of information or any information.
But like today there were some important timeouts at the end – does he translate then or do you just draw and draw some handball terms in Korean?
– He translates, but I have no idea how he translates. I have learned to look at the players whether they understand or not. At such a stage, it’s about making it as simple as possible and drawing the important things on the tactical board. But a lot of time is lost when there are two people who have to talk and so follow-up questions on it. It is far from optimal.
The old gold trainer controls everything
Right after the Olympic place was finished today, Signell was asked by Korean journalists about the chances of winning an Olympic medal, for a national team that has thus not finished better than eleven in the last six world championships.
– They only see their own and live in their own reality. I had to explain that there are probably 10, maybe even 15, nations that are better, almost all of them from Europe. I hope I’m wrong but I think it takes longer than that. There is much that needs to be improved.
Not just in this team with 16 players but the whole structure.
But there are not only flaws in Korean handball.
– They are really advanced in some things, such as tempo, ball release, break-ins and finding solutions in a short time. There they are at the top of the world. It’s interesting to try to find a handball or a methodology that favors their way but also develops it so that it holds up against better teams.
A not unimportant reason why South Korean women’s handball is stuck in the old is that it is the gold coach from the home Olympics in 1988 who is still a kind of godfather who controls everything and who put pressure on the Swedish management team.
– “Professor Chang” has a very high position and a lot of say in everything – when we should gather and how long our camps should be. He doesn’t put much effort into the actual handball tactics other than giving us some humble advice and such. But you really have to fight to get the players you want. He has been on us like a leech, to train more and train longer. We think we have trained significantly more and harder than the players are actually capable of. It has been a very difficult balancing act. If he had had his way, we wouldn’t have had those 2.5 weeks off this summer either, but just continued training.
The Olympic place means that Signell’s contract is automatically extended by one year beyond the Olympics.
When you now get more time with the team and maybe can go to Europe – will the professor join then?
– He is always there. I hope he has changed a little and think we have treated him well. We had really tough battles in the beginning where he wanted us not to go home. What was decided by the association no longer applied then because he had a different opinion. Now I hope he takes another step back and dares to trust us. He may realize that we are doing some good things.
Now all the focus has been on going to the Olympics and time has been short – have you tried to influence the mentality and hierarchies or is it just buying the situation and thinking short-term?
– Many times you have to respect what they bring with them throughout their upbringing and life and culture. Some things are so deeply rooted that you don’t have time for that process, as you say. It is absolutely true that some things just have to be put aside and accepted as they are now. But we still try to influence certain things.
“Always had a fascination for Korea and Japan”
What has been the best or most fun about being the national team captain for South Korea?
– I enjoy a lot here and was overjoyed when we won today. It’s interesting about cultural differences and I’ve always had a fascination for Korea and Japan. You get frustrated sometimes because of these cultural differences and different ways of thinking about things. At the same time, it is so incredibly educational. We have trained so much and the players are dedicated. The feeling is definitely that they believe in our ideas both on and off the pitch. It’s cool to get results for what you’ve done. It has been an intense few months where you have only had to scratch the surface a little. Now we know that we have to work for another year. Then maybe you can tighten up or try to change certain things.
In one month, the Asian Games will begin in Huangzhou, China.
Can you come home to Sweden before then or will you stay?
– We go home tomorrow and return on September 5. But as usual we had to compromise in a few days, and they always win then. It doesn’t matter if you have one argument or twenty, they never answer the arguments. They just said that Japan will be better now so we have to practice more.
You’ve been very outspoken and critical in this interview – you’re not risking your job now if this gets to the professor?
– No, no, you can write whatever you want about the professor. We have said these words to him as well. So there is no danger, concludes Signell.
