Champion in three different countries - only top world coaches have a "CV" like the Montenegrin has, Nebojsa Jovović.
He worked in eight different countries in the Middle East, won trophies in four, was a champion in three - there is no coach with such an impact in the region, let's not go any further.
The championship title he won five days ago in Kuwait, with the Kuwait club, is the toughest and most emotional so far, probably because of the way it was won - in the last round, in a direct clash with rivals, Al Arabi, at its stadium in front of around 20 fans.
- It's a huge satisfaction to finish in this way, maybe I'm not even aware of it in the right way yet - says Jovović, champion of Jordan with Faisaliye, Iraq with Short, winner of the Tunisian Cup with Sfaxien.
- Maybe football is not as popular in Kuwait as in the two previous countries I worked in, Qatar and the Emirates, not to mention Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq... but the last match was really well-watched, as if it were the final.
In the "final", Al Arabi led 1:0 at half-time - they were virtually champions, and it ended with the Kuwaiti club winning 2:1.
Why is this title so significant?
- Because of the dominance we had - we were first from the second round, we had a tremendous series of victories, we celebrated in the first nine rounds, which is a new record, we scored 67 goals, had a goal difference of +52, which is almost twice as much as our nearest rival. And yet, Al Arabi did not let us breathe, they followed us closely, they led to the last game being decisive, where we were still losing at half-time - continues Jovović.
Despite the risk that his team would lose everything he had built for 10 months in one match, he says there was no panic...
- I've never had that kind of pressure in my coaching career, but I did everything I could to keep the players calm and relaxed. We knew it wouldn't be easy, 20 thousand, mostly their fans, and even more so when they took the lead from a ricochet.
Just as the Kuwaiti club was better all season, they were better in the last match - they showed it in the second half.
- At no point, even when we were losing, did I think we wouldn't succeed. There was no panic at half-time, no substitutions, I advised the players to play with confidence.
The red card given to an Al Arabi player at the start of the second half also helped.
- The opponent was much more nervous than us, I saw that. We are technically the better team, it's obvious that they wanted to disrupt us with a bit more aggressive starts, on the edge of the penalty area - says Jovović.
The referee was a Mexican.
- This is a referee who has refereed two World Cups. All playoff games in Kuwait are refereed by foreign referees. The people who run the league want to raise the quality, not only through the infrastructure and the strength of the teams themselves. By the way, one of the good things about football in the entire Middle East region is that coaches and players don't have to think and spend money on referees - the referee can make a mistake, but you know there is no tendency. Foreign referees contribute to that.
This was a special season.
- The fact that I haven't given the players any time off in the last 45 days shows how focused we all were, me, my associates and of course the players. Of course, these aren't particularly intense training sessions, but we did analyses, held meetings - in short, maintained the tension - says Nebojša Jovović, who was assisted by his associates: Marko Jovanovic, Darko Lubarda i Blazo Igumanović.
And it paid off in the end.
- This season has made me a better coach than I was before the season started. Although they say you learn more from defeats, and we mostly won, all the trials, all the spending, and my associates and I living 24 hours a day for the Kuwait club, has certainly influenced us to be even better.
Jovović finally describes it vividly:
- I have often told the players, especially recently - I put success with the Kuwait club before my family and I will not let anything stop me. Nothing would happen without maximum dedication.
And it's not over yet, on Sunday the Kuwaiti club will play the Cup final against Al Arabiya - Jovović has a chance to win the triple crown, as he once did in Jordan, because he has already won the Super Cup this season.
- We celebrated the title for 24 hours, then we went back to work right away. The same opponent, the same stadium, the same atmosphere await us. Our task is to bring even more energy, to try to win another trophy on the wings of championship dominance.
Jovović has won seven of them in his coaching career in the Arab world so far.
- Trophies are fulfilling, they strengthen, they are a motivation for further work and further sacrifices, although I don't think about them when I'm on the bench, I even vaguely remember some of them. My greatest coaching success was not a trophy, but reaching the final of the Arab Champions League with Jordan's Faisaliyah in 2017, which opened all doors for me.
It started with Miljanić and Lobanovski - Kuwait returns to the scene
The Kuwaiti story of Nebojša Jovović - similar and different from others in the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar), or the Maghreb countries (Egypt, Tunisia)...
- The league is good, all teams are well-staffed with five foreigners each. The foreigners in my team are, for example, defenders from Morocco and Congo, a midfielder from Morocco who played in the World Cup two years ago, a midfielder who is Bahrain's best player, and a striker from Tunisia who played in two World Cups. Foreigners in all teams make a difference, and all the coaches in the league are foreigners, except for the Al Arabi coach, which speaks of the quality - says Jovović.
Kuwait was a favorite Arab destination for Europeans, and even for coaches from the ex-Yugoslav subregion, back in the 80s.
- Miljan Miljanić, Valerij Lobanovski, Berti Vogts, Scolari worked there... Kuwait was a brand in Asia at the time, in recent years it has faced serious competition from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates, but it seems to me that Kuwait is slowly making a comeback.
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