Vencel spreads goalkeeping gospel

oceaniafootball.com took the chance to have a chat to the former Czechoslovakia and Slovakia international about his work with FIFA, the current state of goalkeeping in Oceania and his memories of a two-decade professional career.
Were there any goalkeeping programmes already in place at FIFA or have you had to start from scratch?
There were some courses before but they were not held regularly and there was no consistency in the content. If the coaching instructor was from, say, France, it would just be the content he had been teaching in France while someone coming from, let’s say, Japan would bring the content he had been using there. Now we have one programme which we present around the world. Our direction is not necessarily to say, ‘This is from FIFA so it’s the best way’. That’s not the case, it’s just one of the many ways we can teach goalkeeping. We feel that if the participants take away only one piece of information from a course, we are happy. We would never try to say, ‘You have to do it exactly like this’. It’s more a case of showing them a way that works so they can take something away with them and adapt it to their goalkeeping lives.
How have you found the transition from playing to coaching?
Throughout my career I was fortunate to have a lot of help from various coaches and I felt I needed to give some of that back to the next generation of goalkeepers. So towards the end of my playing days, I had that idea in my mind and was already starting to prepare some of the teaching material. From there, the transition from player to coach was very easy. I gained my coaching licences and was working as a goalkeeping coach as well as being assistant coach at Strasbourg. Then I received a fantastic opportunity from FIFA to develop this programme from zero, I was a very lucky man because there are thousands of people waiting for such an opportunity. I am very happy to be doing this. It’s different to the daily work at a club and is very exciting. From a human point of view, it’s fantastic because your presentation is more or less the same wherever you go but you have new people in front of you every time from different countries and different cultures. It’s a very interesting job.
What do you think of the standard of goalkeeping in Oceania and the region’s potential to produce top-class goalkeepers?
I think Oceania is somewhere near the starting point. But if we only have the starting point and nothing else has happened ten years later then there will still be the same issues. That’s why the good work that the technical department at OFC is doing is so important. There are a lot of ideas and programmes for the future and they will be a big help for coaches throughout the Pacific Islands. I think we will soon have a new generation of coaches in Oceania and, from this point on, we can start to hope that many good goalkeepers will be produced. For me, there is no doubt that Oceania can produce world-class goalkeepers. Maybe it will not be tomorrow but it will happen eventually. Why not? The guys from this region are naturally strong and quick, all that needs to be worked on is the technique and the mental preparation.
You had a long playing career at a high level, what was the highlight for you?
After 20 years of playing professionally, it is very difficult to say which was my best moment. The whole experience was fantastic and if I could go back and do it all again then I would. I have maybe only one area in which I wish things would have been different. Coming from Czechoslovakia, I was starting to play with the national team and we just missed out on making it to the World Cup in the United States in 1994. That was just before the countries separated. Slovakia is a very small country and from that Czechoslovakian team there were 14 Czech players and only four Slovak players. It was therefore very hard to become a team good enough to go to the World Cup or the European Championship. It is disappointing never to have played in a tournament like that but it is not a big problem for me as I have many fantastic memories of games against world-class players and I am very happy with that.
Who do you think were the best players you ever played against?
I am showing my age a bit here but I have played against Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit and they were both exceptional. I also saved a penalty from Ronaldo when I was playing for Strasbourg against Inter Milan and there are not many people who can say they have done that! Those were amazing experiences and I was lucky that I did not get injured much and was able to play over 600 games in my professional career.
Your father was also a professional goalkeeper and played for Czechoslovakia. How big of an influence was he on your career?
He played at the same club as me in Slovakia and won the European Championship with Czechoslovakia in 1976. He also went to Mexico for the World Cup in 1970. If you have an idol like that at home you would think the sons would have naturally gone in goal but it was funny because my brother was actually a defender and it was never a case of my father forcing me to play in goal. But he was like a goalkeeping coach for me and I learned a lot from him. It was a nice thing for us to have and now I am doing the same with my son. Having the father and coach being the same person makes for a very interesting relationship. My father is still coaching the young goalkeepers at my former club but will maybe become less involved over the next couple of years as it will get too much for him.
What advice would you give to young goalkeepers?
Goalkeeping is a fantastic job. It’s very rewarding on one hand and very hard on the other. You are probably the most important person in the team because if one day the goalkeepers are all fantastic then all the games would finish nil-nil. It’s a lot of work and it takes a lot of passion to do. It’s different to being an outfield player because there are ten places for them but only one for a goalkeeper. You work all week long and on Saturday there might be no game for you which can be hard to deal with. It’s tough but the only way you can be a top goalkeeper one day is through hard work. You need to have a passion for it because if you don’t you will not get very far.