If I don’t fight in defense, I can’t stay here. So: If you don’t want to defend, this is not your place.
Lived around 2007 at Kuortanene sports college, and the leader of the national volleyball team Jaana Laurila (now Become) had received the head coach From Mauro Berruto a special task. I had to get plenty of sports tape that I could write on with a marker. Now the tape was attached immediately outside the back line of the practice field, in front of the eyes of the players who were training for training.
The young Italian head coach saw huge potential in his team, but also the realities. Even then, Finland was not the biggest or most physical team, so everything had to start through the defensive game.
The players, who spent the lion’s share of the free time they got from their club teams and families at Kuortanene’s training camps or on trips to international matches, jumped on the bandwagon of the fanatical Berruto, who gave his all to his team. There are still legends about the man’s level of demands, most of which are also true.
Rallying point
The fourth place in the 2007 European Championship in Moscow is one of the finest achievements in the history of Finnish team volleyball. The level of demand did not drop when Berruto learned a lot became the head coach soon after his active career Tuomas Sammelvuonowadays a hot name in the sports world. This led to a handsome 9th place at the 2014 World Championships.
The unifying factor was the team leader, Jaana Tulla, who worked at the Volleyball Association from 2004-2019, who served both Berruto and Sammelvuo for more than half a decade in a task that required extreme precision and foresight.
When the Olympic Committee after the historic zero medal Olympic Games in Paris announced that both the leader Matti Heikkinen that vice president Leena Paavolainen being kicked out of the elite sports unit, the situation was very confusing.
In these circumstances, Jaana Tulla, head of the club and membership activities unit of the Olympic Committee, met with the CEO about a month ago Taina Susiluoto. After the meeting, Tulla had become a historical figure in Finnish sports: the first female director of the Olympic Committee’s elite sports unit, albeit in an official capacity. The task will continue at least until the spring winter, as the new board of the Olympic Committee, to be elected on November 30, will not fill the position permanently.
– I don’t know why Taina wanted me for this job, I didn’t ask. I think that through my volleyball experience I am considered a credible top sports person. As a person, I know that I am sufficiently neutral and approachable, but I can make difficult decisions, Jaana Tulla tells Urheilu at the headquarters of sports organizations in Pitäjänmäki.
Does close work
Tulla, who lives there in Sipoo, has visited almost every day during his Olympic Committee work that started in 2019, which was an absolute strength in this situation after Heikkinen, who mostly worked remotely and lives in Jyväskylä. The management of the Olympic Committee spoke with Heikkinen after Paris about the excessive amount of remote work, but no compromise was ever reached.
Tulla emphasizes that he met Susiluoto only after Susiluoto, the chairman Jan Vapaavuori and the rest of the Olympic Committee’s board had made their own operational game moves. He did not know in advance what would be decided at Vierumäki’s fall meeting regarding Heikkinen and Paavolainen.
Before Jaana Tulla, the elite sports unit has been led by three men, two of whom lived Mika Kojonkoski and Heikkinen came skiing and What Leaf hill about athletics. Jaana Tulla is a woman coming from team sports, who knows very well from the long Kuortaneen camps that she has a head start in the Olympic Committee’s presidential game Tapio Korjusen.
The starting points could be even worse if you are interested in doing the job on a regular basis. Acting however, director Tulla is very precise in his words about his future wishes:
– First of all, I don’t look at this job as a full-time job, but like the unit’s personnel, I put in everything every day. Secondly, the new top sports director will only be chosen by the new government, which is wise. So I can’t apply for a job that isn’t available. However, it is not my way to rule out options in life.
Ex-head coach of skiing Reijo Jylhä expressed his interest in Heikkinen’s successor to Urheilu on Tuesday. Jylhä wondered, “is the job of a top sports director comfortable”. Tulla knows the answer for himself:
– It is, but it can also be quite a barbecue.
“Broken People”
When almost a month and a half have passed since the departures of Heikkinen and Paavolainen, Jaana Tulla first of all wants to talk about what the Finnish sports management culture is starting to look like, if it doesn’t already look like it, in the eyes of talented people and from the point of view of the attractiveness of the industry.
Administrative manager Tulla resigned from the Finnish Volleyball Association in 2019 for reasons of choice of values, after finding the treatment of several of his colleagues in the organization to be unfair.
– The culture of the industry produces far too many broken people who have left and whose skills have been permanently lost. This is a huge problem. Acts of trust, for which compensation is not even paid, are referred to as pissing sticks. Coaches are changed like shirts. The Finnish sports world must be able to grow and mature in these matters, even though we operate in a very result-oriented industry.
The unit was not paralyzed
Having won two volleyball championship golds in Vasama, Vaasa, Tulla from Kauhajoki is familiar with the image that the activities of the top sports unit have completely collapsed after the departure of the two managers. He himself takes care of the leadership of both the club service and elite sports unit, which means that Tulla is the front person for almost 50 percent of the employees of the Olympic Committee. The workload is intense.
– I definitely want to correct such mental images of paralysis. The unit is fully functional at all times, preparations for the 2026 Milan Olympic Games are in full swing and preparations for the next grant and enhancement support decisions are in full swing.
Tulla admits that such a situation requires a lot of delegation and admitting one’s own limitations.
– I’m not going to argue Olli Ohtonen (Ph.D. in exercise science, technology and skiing expert of the elite sports unit, Iivo Niskanen with the coach) about how the device that reveals fluoride creams from skis works. So I don’t believe in any kind of messianic leadership in sports.
When Tulla agreed to act as leader, he set two conditions for Susiluoto. The substitute arrangements he proposed had to be made in the club and membership activities unit, and precautions were also taken in the elite sports unit. Customs’ demand acting the director’s deputy was a hockey coach from within the elite sports unit Yucca Iron Raven. He is also from Kauhajoki, but Tulla says with a laugh that that was not the selection criteria.
“I’m not stupid”
The Olympic Committee has previous experience that meritorious team sport coaches of Rautakorve’s level have parked themselves in the elite sports unit mainly to wait for the next, high-paying club match.
– This has been discussed with Juka, I’m not stupid, Tulla laughs.
Although the human laboratory led by Mauro Berruto seemed at times confusing to the team manager who spent 100 days a year on the journey of the national volleyball team, the conclusion was crystal clear and it still holds true.
– The reasons for the need for resources and the committed athletes come first. The number of camp days has increased dramatically, all detailed activities around the team are reduced, clear and simple rules. Continuous playing against better players, rapid rise in score level. It wasn’t any space science, it was a tough elite sports process.
In Finland, almost 20 years ago, the female manager of the men’s national team was no longer an object of wonder, but in Egypt, for example, Tulla was offered security men.
– I said that I brought 20 large security men with me from Finland.
Tulla still fondly remembers the national team’s act of equality: the men radically compromised their accommodation in Kuortane so that the women’s national team could have more camp days.
And although Berruto, who currently works in the Italian Parliament in the protection of elite sports, was often even a scary figure, Tulla once put him in front of the team several times. Berruto received a special scolding from the team leader after throwing a portion of pasta he considered overcooked in a restaurant onto the floor.