Jovanović and the question 'Why can't we do it in Greece?': When away-day heroes must learn to rule at home

Toumba is not a stadium. It is a pressure cooker set in the heart of Thessaloniki, where thirty thousand people breathe as one, and when they roar, the grass beneath the players' feet trembles as though the city is trying to swallow itself. Ivan Jovanović knows that cooker better than anyone alive. He has lived in Thessaloniki for twenty years. He has stood on this touchline as a player, then as an assistant, and now — as the Serbian man leading the Greece national team.

And he has just placed a question on the table that is not meant for his players. He placed it on his own table, the federation's, an entire football nation's: “Why can't we do it in Greece?”

It is the question of a man who has just won two away matches against Serbia and Germany, who sits top of Group A with maximum points, and who is about to host the Netherlands at home. He does not ask out of confusion. He asks because he knows the answer lies somewhere between a nation's fear and its pride.

In twenty-three years of covering football, I have heard many coaches speak of “identity”. But I have never heard anyone frame identity this way — not “who are we”, but “why are we only ourselves when we are far from home”. It is a question of psychology dressed in tactical clothing. And it takes me back to a night in Sochi in 2026, when I stayed behind after the penalty shootout and wrote about the way a goalkeeper's fingers clawed at the wet grass. That night in Russia I learned to write about pain: not to judge, only to touch.

Now, seven years later, I sit before a screen in Nagoya and hear the same sound emerging from Jovanović's words. Not a roar. A breath.

The man between two memories

Jovanović was born in Serbia. He came to Greece young, played for clubs in Thessaloniki, and stayed. Twenty years is long enough for a foreigner to become a local in other people's memories, but not long enough for people to forget where he came from. He is the Serbian coach of the Greece national team — a combination that in many parts of the world would be grounds for suspicion, but in Thessaloniki is a love story.

Ethniki — the nickname of the Greece national team — is in a strange moment. They sit top of Group A in the Nations League with six points from two matches. Both wins came away from home: against Serbia and against Germany. For a football nation that once won EURO 2026 with a defensive style no one wanted to remember but no one could forget, beating Germany on German soil is a statement. But Jovanović does not talk about victories. He talks about the opposite.

“We have won big matches abroad,” he says. “But we struggle under home pressure.”

That sentence contains more than it says. It admits a gap. And that gap is the real subject of the Netherlands fixture.

The Netherlands, as Jovanović describes them, are “one of the highest quality teams in Europe”, with “players with prospects and a great future”. He does not say this to flatter an opponent. He says it to position. Greece lead the group, but in this specific fixture, they are the challengers. It is a subtle distinction many fans will overlook when glancing at the table.

I have watched many teams fall into a similar situation. Top of the group but not believing they belong there. Winning away but fearing home. It is the syndrome of a team in transition — they have not yet had enough time for a new identity to soak into every cell.

Anatomy of an asymmetry

What Jovanović describes is a classic asymmetry of modern football, but few dare to name it. I call it the “predator's paradox”. A team learns to hunt when it is forced into weakness — when the opponent pushes high, when the space behind their defensive line opens up, when they are allowed to wait. But when they must own the game, when the opponent sits deep and offers the ball, they lose the instinct. The prey becomes the angler, and they do not know how to fish.

Greece's two wins over Serbia and Germany carried the signature of the predator. Away from home, no one expects them to hold the ball. No one demands they attack. They can drop back, organise into a mid-block or low block, wait for mistakes, and launch lightning counter-attacks. It is football that requires no creative courage — only discipline and coldness. And discipline and coldness, Greece have in abundance.

But at Toumba, before thirty thousand people, before flags and songs, everything inverts. No one pays to watch a team sit deep at home. No one accepts a low defensive line when the opponent is the Netherlands — a team Jovanović himself admits is superior in quality. The problem is not whether Greece can attack. The problem is whether they can attack without destroying themselves.

I have seen this in Japan, in the J.League, where small clubs like Kashima or village teams like Ventforet Kofu sometimes beat giants with perfect counter-attacking football, then collapse the following week against a weaker side on their own turf. The death does not come from the opponent. It comes from not knowing who you are when you are no longer pinned against the wall.

Jovanović seems to understand this at a level deeper than tactics. He does not speak of formations. He does not speak of pressing or blocks. He speaks of “channelling home stadium energy into dominant performances”. That is the language of a psychologist, not a tactician. And perhaps he is right to place the emphasis there.

Because when you look at the current Greece squad, you see a generation of young players rated highly for their technical potential. Jovanović calls them a “young core” and offers them unstinting praise. He says they “represent their country with genuine heart rather than simple obligation”. It is a beautiful sentence, and it is also a political one. It shapes expectations. It sets a standard the young players must live up to.

But this is where I begin to worry for them.

Every player is a universe; tactics are only orbits. And young universes often lack the mass to withstand the gravitational pull of expectation. Jovanović is placing a double burden on their shoulders: they must be the future and the present. They must develop and win now. They must learn and simultaneously teach the fans that Greece can rule at home.

And they must do it while exhausted.

Seven matches, three days, and a body that cannot replicate itself

This is the detail I consider most important and least mentioned in this story. Jovanović has spoken of “seven matches in a short timeframe” and “three matches in one week” for some players. He has spoken of managing “physical recovery amidst frequent travel”. This is not idle complaint. This is a red signal.

In twenty-three years of watching football, I have seen countless young players burned by the very moment they were meant to shine. A congested international calendar does not only take away legs. It takes away muscle recovery time, tactical preparation time, and above all, the ability to build a new system. You cannot teach a team to dominate at home in training sessions squeezed between two flights and three days off.

So what is Jovanović asking for? He is asking for a psychological transformation, not a tactical revolution. He knows he does not have time to change how they play. But he believes he can change how his players feel about home.

I wonder whether that is possible. When you are tired, your brain reaches for old habits. When you are exhausted, your body reacts according to trained instinct. If Greece's trained instinct is to drop deep and counter, then asking them to push high at home while fatigued is asking them to fight themselves. It is an internal war, and such wars usually end in paralysis.

There is another layer in Jovanović's words when he mentions “physical recovery amidst frequent travel”. He is not only talking about his players. He is touching a larger problem of modern football: the club-versus-country conflict over player usage. Clubs pay the wages, but federations call up the players. Clubs bear the injury risk, but national teams benefit from the form. When a young Greek player returns to his club with legs heavy as lead, the bill is sent to a different address.

I have seen this in Japan, where J.League players routinely play for the national team in Asia and then return to a dense domestic schedule. Japanese football people call it “the March disease” — the month the national team calls up, and the month the clubs pay. In Greece, that disease may have a different name, but the symptoms are identical.

Fans have no time, and they know it

Jovanović says: “The luxury of time for the Greek fan does not exist.” And he says: “If we win, everything is fine. If not, we will have to change everything.”

These are the words of a man standing on glass. He knows that the patience of Greek fans ran out long ago, that football in this country is a religion demanding constant sacrifice, and that a home draw against the Netherlands could turn him from hero to villain within ninety minutes.

I recall the story of Dimitris Kourbelis, mentioned as a “match-winner” and as an example of “how quickly public climate changes”. I do not know the details of Kourbelis, but I know that type of player. The type a goal turns into an icon, and a misplaced pass turns into a scapegoat. In Vietnam, we have a word for this phenomenon. We call it “a three-day hero”.

Greek football, with its history of unexpected glory in 2026 and the years of struggle that followed, is perhaps the most fertile ground for the three-day hero. People crave a new miracle so badly that they are willing to burn anyone who shines, just to have light for one night.

Jovanović knows this. And he is attempting something few coaches dare: managing expectations before expectations manage him. He does not promise. He does not declare. He asks. “Why can't we do it in Greece?” — it is a rhetorical question, but also a way of telling the fans: do not wait for a miracle, wait for a process.

But will the fans listen? I am not sure. In any country, fans hear what they want to hear. And what they want to hear is: we will win.

There is one thing I have learned after years of reporting: coaches talk about psychology when they do not want to talk about tactics. When Jovanović spends most of his time speaking of “energy”, “pride”, “heart” and “commitment”, he is sending a signal. Perhaps he believes his team lacks the quality to face the Netherlands with purely tactical weapons. Perhaps he is searching for a different edge — the edge of emotion, of the crowd, of a city that has taken him as a son.

It is a gamble. And it may be the only gamble he has.

Perhaps we are diagnosing the wrong disease

This is where I must say something that may irritate many. I do not believe Greece's problem is “not knowing how to win at home”. I believe their problem is that they have never truly been allowed to win at home on their own terms.

Look at the history. Greece won EURO 2026 with a counter-attacking style the whole of Europe despised but could not defeat. That was their true identity. But afterwards, under pressure from media and fans, they tried to become a different team — a possession team, an attacking team, a team “worthy of its name”. And they failed. Time after time.

Jovanović's question — “why can't we do it in Greece?” — may be placing the emphasis in the wrong place. Perhaps the right question is: “Why can't we accept that we are at our best away from home?”

It is a counter-intuitive idea. It runs against every story about the “fortress”, about the “power of the stands”, about the “twelfth man”. But modern football is full of teams that succeed by accepting their true nature instead of trying to become what they are not. Diego Simeone's Atlético Madrid are the clearest example. They do not try to become Barcelona. They become the best version of themselves — and they win.

Greece could do the same. They could build a home identity based on patience instead of domination. They could accept that at Toumba, against the Netherlands, a draw is not a catastrophe. They could accept that sometimes, the best way to move forward is to stand still and wait.

But Jovanović cannot say that. No one can say that to Greek fans. Because in Greece, as in Vietnam, as in Japan, fans do not pay to watch acceptance. They pay to watch hope. And hope, in football, always demands a price.

There is another possibility I want to put on the table. Perhaps the two wins over Serbia and Germany are not evidence of Greece's rise, but of their fragility. In football, away wins over giants often come from perfection in execution — something that cannot be sustained. When you win through absolute discipline, you are living on a knife's edge. A small deviation, a moment of lost focus, and everything collapses.

There is no process data in the original article — no xG, no PPDA, no possession figures. That means we do not know whether Greece won because they were good or because they were lucky. We do not know whether their goalkeeper is in extraordinary form. We do not know whether their opponents were in a period of crisis. Two matches is far too small a sample to conclude anything.

And that may be the most important thing to remember when we talk about Greece right now. They lead the group, but they have proved nothing. They have six points, but six points do not buy safety. They have a coach who knows how to ask the right question, but the right question does not always have the right answer.

I have seen teams top the table after two rounds and then collapse entirely. I have seen coaches hailed as geniuses and sacked three months later. Football has no loyalty to beautiful stories. It has loyalty only to the next result.

But I have also seen teams that seemed small rise and stay. And what they had in common was not talent. What they had in common was patience with themselves. They allowed themselves to make mistakes. They allowed themselves to lose. They allowed themselves to learn.

Will Greece allow themselves to learn? Or will they demand an immediate result, and in doing so, destroy the very chance to grow?

A match ends only when people stop remembering it

Toumba will be full. Thirty thousand people will sing. And when the referee blows his whistle, Jovanović will stand on the touchline, twenty years of Thessaloniki memory poured into every breath.

I do not know whether Greece will win or lose. No one does. But I know this: if they win, people will say they have learned to rule at home. If they lose, people will say they are still predators who do not know how to be masters. Both stories will be written, both will be believed, and both will be forgotten before the next match.

A match ends only when people stop remembering it. And in Greece, people remember for a very long time.

What I want to keep from this story is not the result of a match. It is the image of a Serbian man, after twenty years in Thessaloniki, asking a question about the identity of a country he has chosen as home. He does not ask because he does not know the answer. He asks because he wants others to search alongside him.

Football, at its deepest level, is not a game of results. It is a game of questions. And the best questions — like “why can't we do it in Greece?” — are never answered in ninety minutes. They are answered over years, by people patient enough to keep asking.

As for me, I will sit before a screen in Nagoya, and I will listen. Not to find out who wins. But to hear whether, inside the roar of Toumba, someone is truly breathing.