Q&A With Ethniki Omada Assistant Coach Michael Valkanis

Ethniki assistant coach Michael Valkanis was good enough to give us some of his time and talk to us about his current role with the Ethniki, his upbringing, his experiences in life and football particularly in Greece and his memories of the Ethniki.

Not many Greeks would know your story, can you share a little bit about yourself from your playing days, to how it come to pass that JVS was approached for the Ethniki and how did you get involved?

From the age of 6, I played for South Melbourne Hellas in the Australian National Football Competition. When I look back now, I've been wearing the Hellas badge on my chest for a long time. I came up through the juniors to play for the senior team. It was a dream come true as a young Greek to play for Hellas. This team meant a lot to every Greek in Melbourne. It represented the Greek community, the brave migrants which left everything behind in their homeland, to make something of their lives on the other side of the world.

So many players back then, would venture abroad to fulfil boyhood dreams of becoming professional footballers. Mine was to play in Greece. In 1996 aged 20, I arrived at Iraklis Thessaloniki. That season Iraklis had a strong and experienced squad with the likes of Jovanovic, Borbokis, Lagonidis, Mirtsekis, Papadopoulos, Anatolakis, Stoltidis, Konstandinidis. It was a quick learning curve for a young naive Greek boy from Melbourne. Definitely not an easy environment to break into. I finally found my way in Greece playing for Larissa, eventually captaining the historic club, before moving to Panaitolikos.

After 7 years in Greece and a steep learning curve about football and life, I returned back home to Australia. I moved to Adelaide to play for Adelaide City, an Italian club, in the National Competition. Within a year the newly founded club Adelaide United was formed. I am privileged and honoured to have been a player in that inaugural squad. I had moved to Adelaide thinking I would fulfil my 2-year contract and return to Melbourne, but I stayed 14 years having played, captained and later coached at the club. My 14 years in Adelaide were amazing, I enjoyed my football. The A-League started, football had turned a corner in Australia and in Adelaide there was lots of excitement around this new team. Adelaide United were very competitive, we had a good home-grown team of South Australians, I became an adopted son. To this day, when I meet someone people think I am South Australian.

Through my performances with Adelaide I was also able to fulfil another childhood dream and play for the Australian National Team, the Socceroos. This was an unforgettable moment in my career. I will never forget that day playing Kuwait in an Asian Cup qualifier in Sydney in front of 40,00 thousand fans... listening to the national anthem and realising at that moment what I was about to achieve.

When I was playing in Greece, I always thought about coaching one day. I would take my notes and consider the game from different perspectives. When I did my ACL at the age of 34, whilst recovering, I worked on my coaching licenses.

I finally did return back to play one final season. That 12 months of working hard to make a comeback at the age of 35 taught me a lot about life – life’s challenges and the mentality, focus and human spirit required in anyone’s passion, dream, or challenge, required to achieve success in one’s life or overcome adversity.

I was grateful for Adelaide United’s belief and trust in me, to give me that opportunity to comeback and leave the game I loved. I played my testimonial against Newcastle Jets, a special moment saying good bye to the reds fans and helped my team reach the Asian Champions League Final and a-league Grand Final. Unfortunately, we lost both finals. 

Finally, I hung the boots up and ventured into coaching, working with the Adelaide United youth. Whilst working with the youth I was also elevated to working as assistant coach to Dutchman Rini Coolen. I had a clear way I wanted to play especially while in charge of my youth. Having a philosophy and implementing it are two different things. 

The arrival of Spanish coaches at the club, working with Josep Gombau, Barcelona legend Guillermo Amor and Mart was a great education for me. I was assistant to Josep Gombau and in the afternoons, I was head coach of our youth team. These 4 years were an amazing learning curve for me. I put in a lot of hours and I think this period helped my coaching a lot.

After winning the Cup and the Championship in Adelaide I ventured back to Melbourne to assist John van't Schip at Melbourne City and to be part of the City group. 

This was exciting as our philosophies interconnected. We played great attacking football winning the cup and bringing the first silverware to the club. John van't Schip left for personal reasons and I was elevated to head coach till the end of the season. I loved the experience and relished the opportunity to be in charge.

Upon the arrival of Warren Joyce I realised our philosophy of football and coaching didn’t connect. He saw the game differently and this made it impossible for me to assist him. It was a disappointing period in my coaching because I couldn’t understand, how a coach with a completely opposite philosophy to the City group was hired. 

I left the club and this disappointed me because it was my home town and we were building something nice in that first season with van't Schip.

With every disappointment comes an opportunity. My opportunity to coach in Europe came up, when John van't Schip offered me an opportunity to assist him at PEC Zwolle in the Dutch Eredivisie. I didn’t think twice as I know how hard it is for an Aussie to get a coaching role in Europe. I think we are considered as aliens to the game in Europe. Plus, working with John van't Schip was great. We are on the same page so to speak when we think about football. We are connected philosophically. He gives me room to do my work and there’s underlying trust between us.

When John van't Schip left PEC Zwolle, I was asked to stay on and continue my work. This time only I was placegd back in the academy to work with the heads of academy to put in place a philosophy implementation process. Streamlining the style of play throughout the academy and implementing a tactical periodisation method I have put together. This was an experience in itself. I really enjoyed working with the heads of academy and the coaches. I also find it very rewarding being able to help out and leave my fingerprint behind knowing that your work is appreciated and believed in. 

I signed a new deal in Zwolle only to have it cut short whilst on holidays in Greece. I was notified by John van't Schip that there was a new project we were undertaking. Project Greece, project Qatar. I was very excited.

I was saddened to leave PEC Zwolle and the work we were doing there, but this opportunity was too close to the heart. Again, it was more than just results. It was about changing the game, implementing a philosophy we believe in. And this excited us both a lot. We truly believe a Greek national team can play attacking high energy football and win games doing so. It is great to be able to change the mentality and inspire other coaches to believe in another way of playing. 

Was it an easy decision to say yes to the Ethniki?

Yes absolutely. After many years I have the opportunity to again wear the Hellas badge on my chest and what an honour and privilege that is. It is a huge responsibility for us and we are going to keep working very hard to try and make every Greek around the globe proud of the football we play.

Do you live in Greece full time or is it not necessarily needed in your role?

Yes, all three coaches live in Greece. It’s important to be all hands on deck. We watch a lot of games and follow the Greek Super League closely. Part of the project is to also work with our national youth coaches. This has already started, but from the new year we will do a lot more work with the coaches to streamline a philosophy and style of play throughout all our national teams. Helping with the implementation of our philosophy through a building block process utilising our methodologies and our way of training. Hence, there’s a lot of work to do, therefore its easier for us to be residing in Athens.

What are the biggest strengths JVS brings to the Ethniki Omada and how do you, as his assistant compliment them?

I have worked together with John van't Schip in Australia and Holland. We love our football and from the time we started working together in Melbourne we clicked. Our like mindedness in the way we want to see the game played has brought us closer together. Most importantly though we share the same values in life and this has bonded us further.

I think that John van't Schip is a good man manager. He has many responsibilities in managing the whole football department of the Greek national team. He knows to prioritise what’s important, to be able to perform his role and I think with his experience he is able to see peoples strengths and weaknesses and give specific roles and responsibilities to his assistants within the coaching team, to make sure we deliver the best possible camps and prepare the players the best possible way.

Most importantly he has trust and belief in our knowledge and in our ability to work and perform. We have a great relationship and we really enjoying working together.

What are the roles you play in the Ethniki setup outside of preparing for matches and Matchday?

I love my role working with John van't Schip, he gives you lots of scope to work. He knows I am very hands on and he lets me do “my thing” so to say. From the time I worked with him at Melbourne City my role has been about implementing the style of play and game plan. Obviously, this has a lot to do with planning, preparing and delivering sessions using methodology to best convey and communicate our messages in the limited time we have on the pitch. Making sure we implement what we want whilst taking into account also how our players work physically to best prepare them for the games ahead, always taking into account the 4 football performance factors; technical, tactical, physical and mental. With this also comes preparing any presentations in regards to implementing style or game plan. I focus a lot on game reviews looking at how we can always improve within our style of play.

Away from camps we all watch a lot of football. We have a long list of players eligible to play for our national team. Therefore, we look at most of the weekend’s games scouting the majority of the players, to know exactly how they performed, in what state they are in, etc. We need to be on top of everyone and everything. With this we also have scouting projects looking at new players on our radar that we think might fit in. At the start of every week we convene to report on our players.

Seeing this new thinking being swept through the team is refreshing but the main question most fans want to know is, what was the mood like within the squad when you first arrived?

The first and most important objective before we even spoke about philosophy and tactics was building a team. We needed to install values, beliefs and behaviours that were non-negotiable. You cannot separate a football philosophy from a life philosophy. These values and behaviours we wanted, would and will be the cornerstone of all our decisions.

We had to identify the right players, the right characters. People that put the team first. Changing the culture was paramount. We focused on changing the environment off the pitch first and then slowly implementing the football and the style of play.

The common fan knows we aren’t a world class nation rather we see success when we play with passion and desire so what would be the short, medium to long term goals from yourself in this job and how would fans who crave success be able to measure them?

I’ve lived in Greece before having played for Iraklis, Larissa and Panaitolikos. I know the football culture I know the football landscape. I knew very well this was a huge responsibility and expectations would be very high and demanding to coach the national team. The national team in the past 5 years has had its problems on and off the pitch, underperforming and dropping to its lowest FIFA ranking. When John van't Schip explained the objectives of our job, it thrilled us both. It wasn’t just about results, even though in football it always is, but it was about changing the way the game is played; implementing an attacking style of play based on having possession of the ball. The complete opposite style of play what the Greek national team is accustomed to. Though, we still want the Greek fight, the Greek passion and desire as this we cannot lose. All of the above we want to combine with our high energy attacking style of play.

Because we love and believe in this style of play, this was more than just taking over a national team. It was about influencing and making change to the whole football landscape. I personally looked at this opportunity with much respect and honour knowing full well that there was more in this project to achieve than just winning.

Everything we do, every day that we work, we are all working towards Qatar. Through our work we obviously want to assemble and prepare a team that can play high energy attacking football, making the whole of Greece and all Greeks all over the world proud. Hopefully our hard work and performances will take us to Qatar 2022.

How can Greece improve the youth set up and the way we manage youth players, and what needs to be done across all levels of football in our nation?

I would like to see younger talented players be given an opportunity ahead of some of the visa players we see in the Super League. I think that some Super League clubs have very good academy set ups and are developing and nurturing some very good players.

I hope that with the work we are doing with the national team we can impact and influence upcoming coaches with our style of play and philosophy. Looking to promote and coach high energy, attacking, possession based football and not be shaped by a belief or a mentality intrenched from the past that Greek players can only play one way; defend.

When my son came home from his Panionios U15s training to tell me his coach mentioned the Ethniki Omada in his team talk, telling the young players about the way the Ethniki played, giving examples of our attacking play etc. I knew then we are onto a good thing. These are the coaches we need to influence to help change the game.

I would like to see coaches in academies thinking a little outside of pragmatism and playing safe. And looking differently towards identification of players and the selection of the typical stereotype for specific positions. I am talking about the younger age groups. We shouldn’t just select the biggest and strongest. But, selected the technically gifted first. The big and strong, the tactically able we can fix and coach. I hate seeing talented young players in academies miss out because they are not big and strong. In academy level football ability should be most important. If they have both, well that’s great.

I know this is a touchy subject in Greek football but would you rather the team play out of a stadium without a running track / or a smaller capacity or are you happy for us to stay at OAKA with the hope that we can in time play in front of larger crowds?

I think it would be great for the Ethniki to play in different parts of Greece. I think we should be playing in Thessaloniki, Larissa, Crete, not only in Athens.

I know the national team has had its problems in the last 5 years, but we have to move forward. There's a good vibe at the moment and supporters are looking positively towards the team and its last 4 performances. It’s also important to use the passionate Greek support as a 12th man for our team, in the coming Nations League games in September. The players and coaching staff are working hard to make sure on the pitch we play good football and give everything we have. Now it’s also time for the supporters to come out and support the players and their performances.

There’s no secret that most clubs do not get along in Greece but for the common goal of seeing our proud nation play football, have all the SLGR clubs been welcoming to you and the coaching staff?

Before we came in, we had heard a lot of stories. Honestly we focused on building a team and the football we want played. We have worked hard to create relationships with all clubs by going to many Super League games weekly and meeting club officials and fellow coaching staff. We have had no problems. The clubs have opened the doors to us are welcoming and helpful. They are very supportive of the national team. everyone works professionally and respectfully communicating for the benefit of both national team and club football.

Presumably you've been a fan of the Ethniki and followed their fortunes as most football loving diaspora Greeks, what are your emotions knowing that you are part of the coaching staff?

I guess I am very lucky to be born in Australia and have Greek bloodline. You grow up in Australia and throughout your whole childhood at school, in the playground or at soccer you are identified as being a Greek. You grow up in a Greek household, rooted to the culture following all traditions, going to Greek school, Greek functions, learning to speak the language, learning everything about a country we are from, regardless of being born in Australia, we are embedded with a pride of being Greek and never forgetting where your parents and ancestors are from.

As I mentioned before, playing for South Melbourne and wearing the Hellas badge on my chest, I was so proud, knowing full well it represented the Greek community. I was proud to be Greek. Now, again I wear the Hellas badge on my chest and yes it’s an amazing feeling. I have Greek blood and I love hearing the national anthem, I get emotional every single time. I am lucky to have been born in a great country like Australia. Its Australia that’s given me the opportunities I have now and become who I am now. But there’s a connection with Greece that lays deeply entrenched inside of me. I am a Greek Australian. I am honoured, humbled and excited to have been bestowed this responsibility to be an assistant coach to the Ethniki Omada.

What part of Greece are your family from and do you still have relatives there?

My family is from Giannitsa in the region of Pella in Macedonia. Just outside Giannitsa are the ruins of ancient Pella, birthplace of Alexander the Great and capital of ancient Macedonia. The city is 48 km from Thessaloniki. Yes, all my relatives live in Greece.

Are you fluent in Greek or do you find it easier to communicate in English with the players?

My Greek is good. Remember I grew up going to Greek school. I read and write fluently. When I was young, I used to read the Greek sports papers following Greek football. This helped me a lot. I also played for over 7 years in Greece. I communicate to the players speaking Greek, though sometimes I throw some English here and there. Most players understand English and speak a little too.

What were your playing experiences like in Greece and since you’ve been back, have you caught up with any old team mates?

I learnt a lot about football and life in Greece. I came to Greece in 1996 as a naive young Greek-Australian and had to learn fast to survive in this tough industry. It was a dream come true for me. I debuted in Toumba playing in a round 1 Thessaloniki derby - PAOK v Iraklis. Toumba was hostile, very loud and full. It was a great atmosphere. 

We lost 2-0. I had a tough welcome to the Greek league, but I will never forget my baptism of fire. Everywhere I go I seem to be bumping into someone I played with or against. It is always good to reminisce about the good old playing days. There’s lots of stories when you have played Greek football. Football is part of life here; the number 1 sport and people seem to remember everything and forget nothing.

Who was the best Greek and foreign players you came up against in your time playing in the league?

Back then football was a little different. The game has really evolved since then. I played as a central defender. As a central defender I was assigned many man-man roles in those days.

One of the best foreigners I came up against was the Brazilian ex-Barcelona player, Giovanni playing at the time for Olympiakos. He was big, strong but technically very good. Another was the Pole Warzycha of Panathinaikos, a silky, explosive goalscoring machine. I also came up against Greek players like Demis Nikolaidis and Zisis Vryzas. Every weekend I had a tough assignment, challenged to perform and come up against some really good players. It was a huge learning curve. I went back to Australia with lots of experience that helped me perform really well back then in the newly established A-League which led to me also being selected for the national team, Socceroos.

Do you or did you support a team in Greece?

Growing up I supported Panathinaikos. They were always playing in European Cup's, they had Dimitris Saravakos, a great player. After my playing days when I left Greece, I had a strong bond to Larissa. Having captained there but also having made so many friends and great memories I followed and supported Larissa. Nowadays, I support the Greek national team, our Ethniki Omada.

What are your memories from EURO 2004 / favourite Ethniki matches?

I was living in Australia and playing for Adelaide United. I will never forget what the Ethniki Omada achieved that year. The happiness and pride they instilled in Greeks living all over the world. This experience I had getting up in the early hours of the mornings with Greek friends to watch and support our team, plays a pivotal role in knowing the importance of what I am doing now. That team showed and proved what Greeks are capable of when they come together as one. One of my favourite quotes is Winston Churchill's “Greeks don’t fight like heroes; heroes fight like Greeks”. The feelings I had back then will drive my hard work for our team to help achieve qualification for 2022 in Qatar.

Thank you for your time Michael.

Hellas Football