New Brisbane Roar Isuzu A-League Head Coach, Michael Valkanis fronted the media for the first time alongside Club CEO, Kaz Patafta after being appointed to the role on Wednesday morning.
Valkanis returns to Australia to take over the reins at Brisbane Roar, after spending more than seven years in Europe, where he gained invaluable experience at both a domestic and international level.
Valkanis’ 15-year professional coaching career, which began 2010, has seen him work across the A-Leagues with both Adelaide United and Melbourne City in both Assistant and Head Coach roles prior to departing for Europe in 2018.
The new Roar boss outlined his ambitions for his tenure in Brisbane.
On taking the Roar job:
Firstly it’s an honour and a privilege to be here, I’m so excited about being here. Speaking to Zac and Kaz.. we’ve had many conversations about having to move forward and how we’re going to do that and throughout those conversations I was so excited in terms of what we want to do here and how we want to bring the Roar back into Brisbane.
We’re really excited about it.. I went for a run this morning, i’m still probably sweating from it, but running along the river here in Brisbane, just wow.
I’ve been away for a long time and it’s wonderful to live in Europe but once you come back home it’s just amazing and you realize what a beautiful country we do live in and the opportunities we’ve got here to make something special especially at the Brisbane Roar.
I’m really looking forward to so it’s going to be a huge challenge but together with Kaz and Zac aligned with the same vision we’ll make it happen because we’re all willing to work hard, roll up our sleeves work hard and make something special that everyone will enjoy and hopefully bring back everyone to Suncorp.
On how his experience in Europe will help him drive Roar forwards:
A lot of people believe the grass is greener on the other side and everything’s perfect in Europe, but there are so many environments with their problems their issues and a lot of things that you think that is normal to have that they have problems with there as well.
That’s instilled me with a grit in certain environments that I’ve been in to be able to deal with certain challenges and just really believe in what can we control, that’s our effort and our attitude towards things.
That’s what I believe in and I believe in people, I believe in creating environments that will give the opportunity to everyone to be their best version of themselves and to become better than what they are.
I think if we can do that and create an environment like that, that has high standards and rolls on because of the values we believe in, then the football will take care of itself and that is whatever philosophy it is.
We know how we want to play and that’s another pillar that’s really important to us in playing attacking football, in being aggressive, being more intense because that brings me back to my days as a player when I used to come here with Adelaide United.
It was never easy because the Roar were intense, they were a great team, always playing really good attacking football and the crowd, the intensity of the crowd and the passion of the crowd, it was just always good to come and play here because you felt like you were in Europe.
But jeez – after the game it took its toll on you and you always knew how tough it was and probably if we got a point away from here, it was like a win, so we want to bring that back and it’s not going to be done overnight.
It doesn’t happen overnight it takes time, it takes work and it takes a certain way of doing things and we will do that and we’ll change that, there’s no doubt about it.
On the first thing he intends to address:
Intensity. Intensity with the ball and without the ball, I think it can be a lot better.
It’s one thing is that to play and to keep the ball but it’s also to create more chances and score more goals, so it’s all nice to have the ball but there’s a purpose behind it so having possession of the ball is not a philosophy, it’s a tool to create as many possibilities to score goals and we need to do that and it needs to be a clear structure of doing that and an understanding by the players that if I’m going to do this the other one’s going to do that and we know within the team.
That takes some time, not a year, not a season that’s for sure, in Europe you get a month to install something and then progress it. With a national team sometimes you get six days and off you go, you’ve got to put something in place.
We’ve got time here, there’s a long pre-season and I’m looking forward to together with my assistants putting something in place and installing a really good game model for the Roar and hopefully entertain and bring people back but that’s another part of it.
Connecting with the community so you say – “What’s something first I want?”
Yeah, we need the people back part of football, you want to play with people at the stadium, that helps the team as well, it helps them have that intensity that we want and combined we can make something special.
On next week’s Australia Cup Play Off against Wellington:
It’s an important game and it’s part of next season.
I think that the team is in a good way, the last four games I think they’ve had good form and yeah there are some things I’d like to address and fix because of the way I see things and the way I’d like to do things.
But you’ve also got to be careful in how much you can’t, you’re not going to come in and change the world this week, you’ve got to be very clever in terms of moving with the way the teams got that little bit of momentum and belief and they were gaining results in the last four games.
At the same time just give three or four points that I think can improve them and then hopefully win which is very important in terms of how we set up our preseason and then start the rebuild.
It’s a super important game and I’m excited that today we get to see the players on the pitch and we can have a good chat to them and start training and start putting some things in place that I think will help for the next game.
On his assistants Borja Lema and Grijia Nektarios:
I think it says a lot about the guys, how much they believe in what we want to do next. To really back bringing extra staff from overseas and to work in the way that we know to work and what we’re going to bring.
Not only through our methodology and how we train the boys and prepare them, but also through our energy, the energy the team’s got and that’s going to be something special because if we ask for that energy from the players it’s going to be twofold from us.
That’s for sure, that’s 100% if I’m going to ask them to work hard and run and not stop, we do the same in terms of how we work, we don’t stop and these guys are like that and they align with my values and the way I go about life and through my career.
One of my values is team first, always putting the team first no matter what. If we want the players to do that, staff has to be the same and we’re like that, so we’re going to live these values that we want to create.
These values that we want our players to embody and to come out with every day, every game, every minute we live it.
That’s what draws me in, I’m really happy that they’re here and I think they’re going to be really good for the for the playing group. something different.
Kaz Patafta on the appointment of Michael Valkanis:
It’s a privilege for me to sit here with Michael today, Michael has come with an immense CV in coaching, he spent the last 7 – 8 years in Europe on his journey as a coach and to be able to bring Michael back to the Brisbane Roar really shows our commitment to what we’re trying to achieve here as a football club.
It’s evident that this season on field for us in the men’s program was not acceptable, we’re not always just looking at pure results but overall what we expect and the expectations of this club is to continue to progress. We believe Michael is the best person suited for that role and we’re looking forward to his tenure here at them football club.
I just wish to mention that Michael does possess as I said an immense CV – most recently coaching in Turkey in Belgium with the giants at Ajax the, Greece national team but also his experience at Melbourne City and Adelaide United in the A-Leagues really encompasses a leader and someone that can assist us not only with the growth of and the success of the men’s team but also with our new journey in investing back into the important academy structure that we really believe in to take this club forward.
This is an important time for the club, there’ll be a few other exciting announcements to come but our commitment stands firm that we’re now going into the second phase growth this will include significant investment not only into our football programs but into off-field infrastructure as I’ve mentioned into our academy program and we have a strategy with stadium and also the reactivation or the activation of our high performance centre at Brendale.
