Peter Hyballa’s brief stint as head coach of Esbjerg fB was quite tumultuous. The coach was accused of body shaming, while there were also complaints about his way of talking to players. In an open letter in Extra Bladet Esbjerg’s players expressed their ‘strong distrust’ of Hyballa and his coaching staff. The departed coach will receive a supplement on Sunday morning ESPN the chance to tell his side of the story.
“I didn’t take it seriously at first,” Hyballa explains in Good morning Eredivisie. “I said this or that, but I didn’t hit or anything. I have a coaching style that’s a bit cynical and ironic, that’s my style. And sometimes when you see the great trainers. Diego Simeone would have to go to prison for 500 years. The fact that the Danish union was brought in was the first breach of trust for me. I always think that if a player has a problem with a trainer, come to the trainer and say what you want.”
Hyballa resigns immediately after Van der Vaart’s appointment at Esbjerg
The trainer recently decided to leave the Danish club.
“I have also spoken to the players and said: ‘Listen, I can calm down or something’. I am an intelligent man, I have no problems with that. ‘Yes, trainer, we have to adapt to you, and stuff and stuff and stuff’ “And then it was actually good. We play 1-1 in the first game, with pressing football in the second half. And then two days later this open letter comes. I don’t think the players wrote that letter, they have some I did this with the union. A letter came to the newspaper. Then I think: Well guys. And that was the time for me to say, ‘I don’t feel like it’. There was no trust anymore with the players.”
“So you have given the players enough opportunities to say it to you, so you actually think it is underhanded dog heads”, Hans Kraay junior adds. “Yes, absolutely, I think it’s totally underhanded,” Hyballa replies. “I really have a problem with that, it’s really not for me. Because my character is not like that. But I also know that you have that very often in this shit business football. But those 21 players were not actually against me either. “You have a few bad apples in every team, the trainer doesn’t like them. And I must also say that at Esbjerg, two trainers had already been blown out by the players before that. It’s a bit of a method.”
Hyballa also questions the role of the ‘boulevard media’. “I can’t defend myself against air,” continues the clubless coach. “It was really destroying. Every day I thought: That can’t be true. Every three days I had done something new. But for me it was a very normal way of coaching. But you can’t say anything today about color, religion, homosexuals, heterosexuals, and this and this and this. I also accept all of that,” Hyballa said.