“My personal, but also the idea of the club, is to restore the identity of Vojvodina and to regain the feeling that the children of Vojvodina are in the first team, that is, that they are given the assurance that in the near future they will have a chance to play.”
In these words, Radovan Krivokapic, Manager of the “old lady”, at the end of the autumn part of the season, announced what followed in the upcoming weeks, and that is that many players were brought from the Youth Academy “Ilija Pantelic” to the first team of red and whites.
Even here in Belek, among 27 players of the first team, even 16 of them went through Voša’s football academy, and it can rightly be said that the words of Radovan Krivokapić from the beginning of this text really have their weight and significance. However, when it comes to returning the identity of the club, all the fans of Vojvodina welcomed the news that, apart from talented youth, the member of the first team of “old lady” from this winter became Vuk Mitošević, a player whose name is well known to everyone whose heart is knocking for red and white color of Vojvodina and the footballer who was the standard member of Voša at a time when the club recorded much better results than it was the case in the last two seasons.
After six years of playing in Serbia and abroad, he returned to the club where he started his career and, he says, is extremely motivated to record with his Voša again the results on the pride and joy of the fans.
– It’s nice to be in Vojvodina again. Some things have changed, but it took me a lot less time to adjust myself than to go to another club I do not know anything about. I made a transfer to the club I know most about, and believe me that I never felt more excited during the preparation than it is now. From my period, only physiotherapists and kit manager Jotanovic are still here, and there are many young players. Nevertheless, I know the work of the Manager Krivokapić, and I know our new analyst Smajić for almost a lifetime, so I think that I practically already fit in – says Mitosevic.
When you first joined the first team of Vojvodina, you were one of the youngest players, and now you are 27 years old and already among the elderly. In your opinion, how much did Vojvodina change as a club for this entire period?
– I probably can not really see it, because when I left I was 21-22 years old. I watched the club in one way, and now I look at the club in a completely different way, but also generally football and life. Football is such that you need a lot of time to reach some enviable level, and very little to bring it all down. The situation in Vojvodina is not great, but I was aware of it when I came. Simply, there were other times before, and the whole relationship of the strengths in the Serbian football was different than it is now, but if Vojvodina is in crisis, it is not good for the entire Serbian football. On the other hand, it is a good thing that several other clubs have stood on their feet and now they are right behind or among Red Star and Partizan, which should motivate us, in organizational and football terms, to overcome them and put Vojvodina where it should be.
In the current team of Vojvodina, practically half of the players belong to or have just left the Youth Academy. How does this team looks like to you and what do you expect from it in the continuation of the season?
– It’s very specific that this is a very young team, but it is still expected to achieve good results. Although these two things hardly go together, I believe that we can do what is required of us. The guys are talented, and the boss is also young and eager to affirm, so this is the rhythm we have to follow. With some corrections and improvements in every sense, I think we can achieve this minimum goal that we have set up, and maybe we’ll climb some place more.
Can the present young players of Vojvodina, who can still be called youngsters, on your example to see what the true attitude towards the coat of arms and the Vojvodina jersey should be and attachment to the club that has invested in them since childhood, and gave them a chance to become footballers and improve themselves?
– There’s been a lot of talk about Voša’s kids. The boss is Voša’s child, I am Voša’s child, now there are many younger players who are also Voša’s children. However, the fact that someone is Voša’s child should not be any privilege. Moreover, I think that because of this you must have even greater responsibility, because in raised up in Vojvodina and that’s why you have to respect the club as the institution through which many big players have passed. I was fortunate to start playing football in Mika Radosav’s school, which was a member of the first Vojvodina’s tittle winning team and my whole generation was aware of it. However, as long as I did not enter professional football, I did not understand the weight of it and how much it was actually hard to acheve. In addition, in the Youth Academy, my coach was Rajko Aleksic, and there were also Panta (Ilija Pantelic), Dobrivoje Trivic, Pera Nikezic… These are all legends of the club that we were aware of, and they served us as an example and they often knew how to criticize us. Today’s time is different and young players are launching faster, with managers and some other factors that are surely defective in their development. I will try to show them by my example and explain that this is a big club, no matter where it is currently. There is a great deal of work ahead of them and they must be aware of what I may not have been aware of when I was 18 years old, and that is, not only here but also in the world, many talented players have failed due to lack of discipline and irresponsibility, just like some much less talented than them managed to make a career. The sooner they understand this, it will be better both for them and the club.
During the past six years, you have performed in foreign clubs in Kazakhstan and Hungary. What is your experience there and what is the quality of the league and football there compared to Serbian?
– Different is the philosophy of players in Serbia and other countries where I have been. In Serbia, over 90 percent of players play in order to go somewhere else and make a career, while, for example, in Kazakhstan, all the national teams players play in their clubs. They are not hurrying and have no such pressure to go abroad. Primarily from the financial side, they have much better conditions than domestic players in Serbia, and in the league itself there are two or three teams that jump out, while all others are about the same quality. As far as Hungary is concerned, they have made a real revolution in recent years and I congratulate them for that. A lot of money is invested in football, but we are definitely a much more talented nation. I am very sad about the fact that we do not have such conditions as they, because the quality of the football in Serbia and in Hungary then could not be compared. We need only infrastructure and some stable sources of funding so we can keep those kids here and make the players from them.
You were part of one great generation from the Vojvodina Youth Academy, in which, beside you, there were Slobodan Medojevic, Aleksandar Katai, Danijel Aleksic, Ognjen Mudrinski, Miroslav Stevanovic, etc. Are you in contact with them and do you remember when you were playing together in Voša?
– I am in contact with Medojević, with whom I was a roommate in Vojvodina and whom I know my whole life. Also, I am also in touch with Mudri, Katai, Danijel Aleksic, Stevanovic… These are the players who were in the first team in Vojvodina, but besides them, there are more players from my generation who have bypassed the way to the Super League or abroad. For example, Sedlar, who is now in Poland, also played for national team, and then Aleksandar Tanasin, who is now in Proleter… I think we were a talented generation and we often remember that time, which is now a long way in the past.
Before you left Vojvodina, you reached the final of Cup of Serbia twice (in 2010 and 2011) with your club, but Vojvodina was left without a trophy. Do you hope and do you believe that you can still win the trophy with the “old lady”?
– There are some things I’m dreaming about from the moment I realized that I’m going to be a professional footballer. I’m dreaming of some things with Vojvodina, but I don’t want to talk about trophies now, because from today’s perspective, that may not seem so real. Nevertheless, it certainly is one of my dreams and I hope that it will come true one day.
In the first spring round, Vojvodina is expected to play against Red Star in Belgrade. What can fans of Vojvodina hope for in that match and do you have something to tell them before the second part of the season?
– It will be the first game for both us, and the favorites usually complain that their first competitive game is always the hardest. With excellent preparations, and there are still three weeks in front of us, I believe that there is a chance that we achieve good result. It will be played on good pitch, in nice conditions, and I think that we can surprise them and everyone else in Serbia who have written off Vojvodina. As far as the fans are concerned, I can promise them only the maximum attitude towards the game by all of us in the team. It sometimes brings a result, sometimes not, but I hope that they will recognize it, and that in the spring they will be supporting us in bigger number than it they did in the autumn, so that, together, we might come to some miracle, Mitosevic said.
