Sascha Costa leads the judo team into the Bundesliga final
Updated: September 20, 2023, 03:30 | Reading time: 4 minutes
Sascha Costa (37) is the new head coach of the Hamburg judo team.
Photo: Michael Rauhe
The 37-year-old is the new head coach of Hamburg JT as the successor to Slavko Tekic. On Saturday it’s all about making it to the finals.
Hamburg. Complaining is generally not his thing, but he should complain about a lack of tasks Sascha Costa I’ve never really been able to complain in recent years. As the full-time head of the judo department at Eimsbütteler TV, the licensed athletic coach is very passionate about his sport.
In his private life, he is also busy with his three-year-old son Felipe and his daughter Sofia, who was born last Wednesday. Nevertheless, no was not an option for the 37-year-old when his long-time coach Slavko Tekic called in early summer. The 53-year-old Serb told his protégé of earlier days that he had taken over his duties as head national coach in the Hamburg association and as head coach of the Hamburger Judo-Teams (HJT) would give up in the Bundesliga and move to Baku as national coach of the Azerbaijan men’s team on August 1st.
Judo Hamburg: Costa was a former Bundesliga fighter
“He asked me to take over his position at the HJT. I couldn’t refuse that simply out of gratitude to him,” says the native of Hamburg, who owes his last name to his Portuguese father. The biggest challenge was explaining the additional time burden to his wife Iris. He solved it in his own pragmatic way by watching a HJT fight on the live stream while on vacation in order to demonstrate that he was already investing a lot of time in his old love anyway.
In fact, the nutritionist, who fought for a long time in the German national team and for Hamburg before his third cruciate ligament tear finally forced him off the mat in 2015, never let his connection to the HJT break. He gave up his position as team manager three years ago to have more time for his family. “But since then I have only watched a single day of fighting neither live in the hall nor on the stream,” he says.
Kurbjeweit Garcia becomes national coach
The connection to the team is correspondingly intense, and the mutual familiarization is correspondingly low. And because the selection fighter Dario Kurbjeweit Garcia (29), who is still part of the HJT squad this season, will end his active career on January 1, 2024, quit his police service in Munich and return to his homeland to take over Tekic’s second area of responsibility as head national coach, The new start in Hamburg judo is not such a big new beginning.
“For me, the HJT is a matter of the heart, and since I have a very good connection with Dario, I firmly believe that we can continue to write the success story of Hamburg judo together, even without Slavko,” says Sascha Costa. The prerequisite for this is that he builds a similar relationship of trust with the athletes as Tekic had achieved.
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“I am interested in each individual and want to know what moves the team. That requires sincerity and authenticity,” he says. In addition, he still has a dedicated line to Slavko Tekic. “I can always ask him for advice if I need it.”
Final 4 finals on October 7th in Abensberg
He will do that this week when it comes to the lineup for the last fight of the main round. In the Wandsbek sports hall it will be decided on Saturday from 5 p.m. whether the HJT will qualify for the Final Four, which will take place on October 7th in Abensberg, Bavaria.
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A victory over the fifth-placed team in the Bundesliga northern group, Sportunion Witten-Annen, would secure second place and thus the final round ticket. In the event of a defeat, third place Remscheider TV, which is one point behind, could overtake sixth place JC Bottrop with a win.
“We have it in our own hands and we don’t want to let it be taken away from us anymore,” says Sascha Costa, who has to do without national fighter Dominic Ressel (29/class up to 81 kg) at his coaching debut, who is at the Grand Slam tournament in Tekics new home Baku is fighting for points for Olympic qualification. The selection fighters Moritz Plafky (27/up to 60 kg), Kurbjeweit Garcia (up to 90 kg) and Losseni Koné (22/over 100 kg) are in the squad. “It’ll be fine,” says Sascha Costa. And if not, he won’t complain, he’ll just get on with it.
Updated: Wed, September 20, 2023, 3:30 a.m
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2023-09-20 01:31:50
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