The New Approach to Greek Football

The Australian coach Michael Valkanis has decided to change the game of Greece’s football for good. He works closely with the Dutch John van’t Schip with whom he had earlier partnered at PEC Zwolle in the Eredivisie and at Melbourne City. The pair has worked efficiently as the Ethniki approach towards qualifying towards Qatar while raising the levels of national pride even if they missed out on the Euro 2020.

Valkanis along with van’t Schip worked for Greece to end with three successive victories to land four points away from the second position Finland, while Italy was on the top of the group. The duo had to work from the scratch to lift the Euros campaign from the ground under the former coach Angelos Anastadiasis. The three opening games Greece played include the lost game against the Finns, a draw against little Liechtenstein and a 2-0 defeat in Italy had a better performance from the team than before.
The duo said that they weren’t looking for the most qualified ones when they started with the team. They always thought about their goal to be a long term plan for Qatar.

Greece Is stuck in the past and is continuously being haunted by the ghost of 2004 when they were able to form a defense to win the European Championship. However big the success was, this led to a huge phase of football which wasn’t taking risks. Valkanis and van’t Schip are changing this mindset with a game that is more adventurous and has the freedom of expression.

According to Valkanis, who isn’t six years of his life in Greece at the height of his career as a player, Greece has been used to defending and playing on the counter-attack. To be able to bring about a change in this strategy is the best he has done so far. He believes that his players are both technically and tactically good enough to not stick with their older approach and play with a new style.