Salim Samion about his badminton philosophy and goals as a Head coach of Ukraine’s national team
Three months ago, the Technical Director of the Ukrainian Badminton Federation made a surprising announcement. Mr. Luca Crippa has promised that Ukraine would receive a new Head coach of the national team and for the first time in Ukraine’s history, this person would be a non-Ukrainian citizen.
On October 19th, Mr. Salim Samion had his first training session at Kyiv Racket Sports Park together with Danylo Bosniuk and Ivan Medyskyi. We took this interview the same day few hours after the training session!
Dear Mr. Salim, nice to meet you. Are you first time in Ukraine?
Yes. This is my first time in Ukraine. Even though I have been in Europe for 10 years, this is my very first time in Ukraine. I have never traveled to Ukraine before, even for tournaments.
So, welcome to Ukraine!
Thank you.
What was your first impression of the country?
Before my trip to Ukraine, I visited many European countries. I have worked in Finland, Denmark, and Norway as a coach for 10 years. And, of course, I traveled to many European tournaments, including those held in the Baltic region, Lithuania and Latvia. So, I thought that Ukrainian would be a bit similar to other Eastern European countries.
But when I arrived, the first impression was very nice! The country is beautiful and I need to say that the people are warm in welcoming me even though I have a little bit of trouble with the language. But I can see their sincerity towards welcoming people. That’s very nice and positive energy. I can see and feel that! And the way the federation welcomed the first day was so warm and feel so happy. I can feel that I am around some really good and professional people.
Yeah, but the first thing that you told me when I saw you in the office of badminton in Ukraine is that it’s too cold in Ukraine? I suppose that the Malaysian climate is warmer in welcoming guests. It will take you some time to get used to our weather.
Can you please tell our readers more about you and your background in badminton?
Sure. My name is Salim Samion and I’m 41 years old. I started playing badminton in Malaysia at 17 years old. Straight away I moved to a professional club where we had a legendary player and coach Mr. Misbun Sidek. He’s an iconic person for badminton in Malaysia.
So, I started badminton professionally when I was 17 years old. And when I say professionally, it is a bit different than in Europe. We started the training early in the morning at 4:30 and it lasted until 11 o’clock in the morning. And then from 11 to 2 o’clock we had a break and between 2 o’clock to 5 o’clock another session. Every day. Including Sundays. Mostly the training will be in very high intensity and mixed up with tactical and realistic training. That’s badminton in Malaysia.
It may sound a bit scary for those Ukrainian players who will join the training center in Kyiv.
That’s the program we went through in Malaysia. As a result, I qualified for the national team, became a national player, won a lot of good tournaments and I was playing until 24 under the Federation rule.
Then I got an offer to become a sparring partner for the Japanese team players and Japanese league. While I was in Japan, I got another offer from Finland to take care of their junior national players. So, I moved to Finland for 4 years. Afterward, I was playing in a Danish professional league club where I was also coaching the top national junior players in Denmark, Rasmus Fladberg, Sandra Maria Jensen where the won medal in World junior. And apart from that, I also had a chance to train players like Emil Holst, Niclas Noah, and others.
After that victory, I thought that it was time to go back home but I received a new proposal from the Badminton Association of Norway. I was offered to become a head coach. The association had a goal to qualify one player for the Olympics in London 2012. And I am happy that we’ve reached that goal. Sara Blengsli Kværnø represented Norway in London.
In 2013, I got another big offer from Malaysian legend, Misbun Sidek. He asked me to become his assistant in the new program for the Olympics 2016.
I was very pleased to work with Mr. Misbun because he had a lot of knowledge and coached Lee Chong Wei for more than 10 years!
Read about Misbun Sidek here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misbun_Sidek
For me, it was a very good situation to learn more. Even now, even though I’m a coach here, I am always open to talking about badminton with club coaches because I like to share ideas in badminton. Every coach has something to share and we can learn and develop together. That’s my philosophy in badminton.
Thank you very much for this introduction. Malaysia, Japan, Denmark, Finland… You had a chance to observe so many badminton systems. Now, I suppose that you have developed your own methodology. Can you please share more on your own approach? What’s the core of your program?
It’s a very good question. Because of the experience working on two continents, Europe and Asia, I know the importance of both approaches. Physicality, of course, is the core of badminton. It is like the foundation of your building. Badminton has high intensity and it is very demanding physically. Every player should have a very good physical shape so that there are able to play from first to final with good quality games and mentally prepared. But, I’m not a super crazy guy about all that physicality. We have 8 components of physical training. Agility, strength, cardio, and so on. The main thing here is that the training process to develop all components needs to be very stable and equal to other elements like technical, tactical, and mental. So that the player does not feel fatigued, he or she does not feel exhausted or super tired. That’s not my aim.
…I’m not a super crazy guy about all that physicality…
When players are in good shape, they can follow my program. If the training session in the morning lasts for 2 hours, players should sustain their body to follow any technique and module of training. And in the technical part, I always prefer to be more realistic. That’s smth that’s being practiced by Danish players and coaches, who are using a lot of realistic programs. What happens if you drop it here if you put it in the center? What return should you expect? I try to make all the exercises close to reality. From a realistic point of view, I will work with the specific things to build the system on top of maximizing the strength and minimizing the weaknesses of players.
When players are ready physically and technically, we will work to make them ready mentally, so they will feel confident.
In Norway, you had a clear purpose to bring one national player to the Olympics. When you got the offer from our Federation, what was the goal on paper?
Here is the story behind it. When I got the offer from Luca the first thing I said was, “Luca, please, send me the names of players”.
Before I agree to work, I wanted to see the list of the names. Why? I watched the players, found their games, and had to think whether my style of coaching suits them or not. When I watched their games on YouTube, I got a very good feeling. I thought that it is only a matter of time when they may become top players in Europe if they get the right momentum of training in modules and also educate them on what it takes to be a professional including discipline, time management, and recovery.
Goal. I don’t want to talk about that like a big goal. Of course, in the first 3 to 6 months I want to build a very strong foundation both in technical and understanding.
Physical issues become automatically improve when they have some very good sessions and a consistent training schedule. When the program is going on for 3 to 6 months physically the player can feel their improvement overall.
I don’t put a lot of emphasis on physicality, but technically they need to match the best of the European level. And most important thing is that they need to understand this as the way if they want to be champions.
Of course, I would like Ukrainian players to have some medals at the European championship. That’s a very important tournament.
So, I would like them to have some medals, some good results in Europe and become more participants in the Olympics. Why am I telling you this? You can see Kevin Gordon; he was in the semi-final of Tokyo 2020.
I have a very good impression of badminton and the framework which Federation is trying to put in place. We need to build the road. Paris 2024, Los Angeles 2028. That’s a path.
Yes, we all saw Danylo Bosniuk playing an almost equal match with Kevin Gordon just 2 months before the Olympics. Regarding Ukrainian badminton, one of the challenges you may face is that we do not have many tournaments in Ukraine. And the level of competition is quite low on the top. We have just a few names that pretend to win nationals. That’s totally opposite to what you had in Malaysia or Denmark. How are you going to work with this obstacle?
The development of other players is one of the things that I have been discussing with Mr. Luca. We give a chance to the second-level or third-level players to participate in the national camp. So, they can also feel the professionalism of full-time training and they also can develop a little bit more differently. But as you said, in Malaysia we have so many players so that even a local tournament will be at a high level. But in the last four years, I need to be very frank with you, in Malaysia, we are struggling to find good players because of the system. We have only one national championship per year… That’s not enough.
Luca Crippa: “I believe that Ukraine is in a good position to succeed!”. Read the interview here.
But I hope in Ukraine we want the club’s best players to play with the good players in the association. So, they can grow up together. Growing into a community. You are challenged, you are a national player, show your level. So, show your level so everyone can realize what they need to train and catch up.
So, I hope that clubs will work together to organize the tournaments and work closely with the Federation. We want to organize tournaments, support the players, so we can select the best players.
You are the main person who is responsible for the results of players and the result of the national team.
You should know that Ukrainians always expect quick results. How are you going to work with the pressure and skepticism that you may meet? Is it a challenge for you?
For me, the responsibility or the criticism is very important to build me up as well. So every time when I wake up, I’m not like “Oh okay today we’re gonna do smth…”. No, I have a huge question waiting for me. So, I need to prepare and for each training, I need to give my best. That’s my motivation towards the criticism.
But if you take the performance, the style, and the formula. With the setup of the national team, we can see the differences in 3 months. It takes time to cash. But performance? We can promise that they will always keep progressing upward.
I am happy because my priority is to give my best for the players and they’re going to be my main target and payback with the results. In Malaysia, we’ve got a little bit different culture. We try to give positive feedback to players in any case.
Culture is very important. Have you read something about Ukraine or the Ukrainian mentality? Do you think that it can significantly impact the process, results? Will you pay some special attention to building up personal relations with players?
Yeah, I read some articles and I also asked Luca what is the style of the Ukrainian song.
What I understand is that with Ukraine, you need to be honesty. Even if it’s a good thing or if you are not going to do good — you have to stay honest. It’s very important and it’s easy for me to conduct the training in this way. If you are not enough for this, you need to train more on this and that. I’ll be open with players.
Maybe a few more questions about your personal things. Have you moved to Ukraine together with your family?
Yes, I have a family and two kids, six years and five years old, my father and my wife. They are going to stay in Malaysia in the beginning. My responsibility is very high, so maybe in the first few, it will be better if they stay in Malaysia as I will be totally focused on badminton duties. My kids just started to go to school. I think it’s a bit sad but I have some responsibilities to do. That’s very important.
Saying hello to your family! I hope they will read our interview. And a few more questions in a Blitz mode. The tastiest food or dish that you already tried in Ukraine?
Honestly, I haven’t tried any Ukrainian food yet. The first place was some Georgian restaurant. So, I tried something with cheese inside))
Yeah, that’s the Georgian Khinkali. Are you open to talking more to Ukrainian media?
Sure, you are welcome to send your requests!
Special thanks to Mykhailo Vavdichyk, who made photos for this badminton blogpost. Subscribe to Mykhailo’s Instagram to watch more art of photos: https://www.instagram.com/vavdichyk_photo/
Kyiv, October 19th, by Max Sydorenko for “This is badminton” blog
