Rivera removes Perisic and Vasiljevic from Red Star staff
Albert Rivera is reshaping the part of Red Star's coaching staff in charge of physical preparation. Nikola Perisic and Marko Vasiljevic are out, and only Nikola Todoric remains.
Two men who stood beside every first-team coach of Red Star Belgrade on the training pitch for years will no longer run the players’ physical preparation. Nikola Perisic and Marko Vasiljevic have been removed from the coaching staff that Albert Rivera is reshaping to his own specifications, and the club has not yet commented officially.
The news was first reported by Mozzart Sport and picked up by TV Arena Sport. It comes after the decision to remove captain Aleksandar Katai from the squad for a period over his reaction to being substituted in the game against Radnicki. We covered his absence earlier.
Who are the men Rivera removed?
Perisic and Vasiljevic were assistants to the head of physical preparation under Vladan Milojevic and Dejan Stankovic, and later under Ivan Vucetic and Frederic Panconcini.
Perisic has been employed at Red Star since May 1, 2020, and was at the club before that, in the youth academy, on the staff of Nikola Puaca. He later went through the staffs of Dejan Stankovic, Vladan Milojevic, Milos Milojevic and Barak Bahar. According to Mozzart Sport, he will probably be moved to another position at the club.
Vasiljevic has also been at the club since 2020 and has been with the first team the whole time.
What did Rivera ask of the board?
According to Mozzart Sport, the Spanish coach told club officials and members of the sporting department that he needs a different way of preparing players. The same source says the board backed his request to bring in new people, and that no harsh words were exchanged, at least not in public.
TV Arena Sport writes that with this move Rivera wants to impose his own system and working style fully, and to prepare the players’ bodies for the heaviest demands of a long season the way he believes is right.
Who stays in the fitness staff?
Of the previous fitness specialists, only Nikola Todoric remains. Mozzart Sport reports that Red Star should soon bring in a specialist with a similar profile, but it does not name anyone.
Such a turn is nothing new for Rivera: at Celje, physical preparation was run by a local specialist, and the same was true at Eintracht Frankfurt.
When is the club expected to respond?
Mozzart Sport writes that Red Star will probably react after the European games against Lugano and Copenhagen. The first is the away game at Lugano in the Conference League on Thursday, October 15, at 6:45 p.m. Rivera goes into that match without Perisic and Vasiljevic, and a new fitness coach has not yet been introduced.
