A gaggle of boys from a local school attending a session at Fulham’s training ground had a surprise as they snaked along the side of one of the pitches. The imposing presence of Slavisa Jokanovic was right there. One of the boys plucked up the courage to break out of the snake to shake the Fulham manager by the hand. Both man and boy looked genuinely pleased. Popularity is not a particular motivation for Jokanovic in itself, but he appreciates that it is a by-product of a far more important matter: delivering results.

An hour spent in Jokanovic’s open‑minded company reveals just how driven he is, just how directly that desire to do well affects his daily life. Come the end of the day he headed home to an empty house. Often he has plenty of visitors, friends and family around, but one of the realities of a vocation that has taken him to six countries in the past eight years is that he tends to live away from his wife and three children, who remain based in Spain to give them a more stable upbringing and education. “I left Serbia in 1993 and my family is living in Madrid while I am working around the world,” he explains. He feels compelled to follow the opportunities, the chances to improve and develop, as they come. It takes a certain inner determination for a family man to take that path.

Jokanovic’s resolve is a tangible part of his personality. But if that gives the impression of a tough guy who believes in tough football, please don’t get the wrong end of the stick. He is as approachable as he is authoritative, which is one of the reasons his team have blossomed this season with everyone at Craven Cottage inspired to follow his ideas.

The division’s joint top-scorers have a penchant for playing with an attacking élan not normally associated with the gruelling task of wrestling a way out the Championship. Fulham’s impressive run at the sharp end of the season has been based on free-wheeling offensive play which propelled them to the top six backed by far the most prolific record in front of goal of the four contenders in the play-off showdown. They host Reading in the first leg of their semi-final tie on Saturday.

His football style owes a lot to the traditions of the country of his birth. Jokanovic was born in Novi Sad, in the former Yugoslavia. “They wanted to put the ball on the floor and try to dominate the game and win the game with the ball. This is our tradition,” he says. He was part of an exceptional generation whose football became caught up in the political climate that led to war and the break-up of their former country. Jokanovic was on the roster of players used in the qualification campaign for Euro 92, which included such luminaries as Zvonimir Boban, Robert Jarni, Predrag Mijatovic, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Darko Pancev, Robert Prosinecki, Dejan Savicevic, Dragan Stojkovic and Davor Suker, players who went on to have glittering careers.

“This generation was under-20 world champions in Chile,” Jokanovic recalls. “I was runner-up with the under-21s. I have a silver medal for that competition. It was a very competitive generation and the mentality was all about one result – if we don’t win we are not happy.”

As a consequence of the war that broke out in the Balkans in 1991, the team were banned from participating in the 1992 European Championship in Sweden. They found out just a few days before the competition started. “Without this political problem, if we stayed all together I believe the possibility existed for this team – with its quality and competitive spirit – to win this competition,” Jokanovic says. “I am not a political man. We are sportsmen and were thinking about other things. It’s true it was a big damage for ourselves, but with time we started to understand that others endured bigger damage with these political problems.”

During a traumatic period, this talented group spread out across Europe, moving away from their homeland to play football elsewhere. In 1993 Jokanovic joined Real Oviedo. They were managed at the time by the well-travelled Serbian coach, Radomir Antic – known as ‘Raddy’ to English fans following his spell at Luton Town in the early 1980s and his famous goal that saved them from relegation at Manchester City’s expense and got David Pleat dancing on the Maine Road turf in 1983. Since his playing days Antic is also one of the few to manage both Real Madrid and Barcelona, among others. “He was a very important man for me. I learned many things from being next to him,” Jokanovic says. “I was more times in the last 20 years in his home than in the home of my parents.” They still have homes close to each other in Madrid.

Moving abroad for the first time was a challenge. “It was a complicated step,” he explains. “I was really young and understood only one style of life. I needed to adapt but I never even knew what adaptation was as it was the first time I came across this idea. Some things were really strange but I began to understand. Professionally I didn’t have any problem because football is a universal language.”

Spain became the next major influence on his football thinking. He spent time at Tenerife before becoming part of the technical midfield that underpinned Deportivo La Coruña’s first La Liga title in 2000. It was there he caught the eye of Claudio Ranieri, who recruited Jokanovic for Chelsea. By his own admission it was not the most productive part of his career but it was critical in terms of his future. Jokanovic is in no doubt he would not be attempting to guide Fulham into the Premier League today without the introduction to English football he absorbed at Stamford Bridge.

Slavisa Jokanovic spent two years in London playing for Chelsea under Claudio Ranieri, from 2000-2002. Photograph: Mike Finn-Kelcey/Allsport

“I feel in my skin when I changed Yugoslavian football for Spanish football that there was not such a big change,” he explains. “It was a similar style – passing is more important than shooting. Probably in England shooting is more important than passing. But when I changed Spain for England I could feel in my skin different about the style of football. If I didn’t find a solution I would try to pass back, and then Ray Wilkins told me: ‘Don’t have so many touches on the ball. Push the ball forwards. In the first 20 minutes don’t complicate things. Don’t play two touches, or one touch – play half touch.’

“At the time I didn’t have enough time to adapt to be satisfied with my level. But now I have enough experience, to respect the way I am working, to understand this culture of football and what people want to watch. I tried to change Fulham a little bit because we believe we needed to adapt our style to show our strength.” The evidence of that has been clear on the pitch, with the confidence to succeed through progressive, attacking football.

Assessing how to make an impact quickly has been a hallmark of his managerial career so far. His first job took him home to Serbia and his former club Partizan Belgrade. He promptly won the double. The next post was an unexpected one, in Thailand, with Muangthong United. “I thought it was a big risk,” he says. “It’s so far and I don’t know anything about this football. But one of the interesting things for myself was to find out Robbie Fowler was a player and coach of this team. I thought OK, if this guy can organise his life in this place, it’s probably not so bad. I am going to try it. In the end it was a fantastic experience. I started to understand life is similar all over the world. What we want here in Europe is not so different to what they want in their part of the world. I learned that this world is not so huge.

“I believe I am a brave man, I am a good observer, I am living in different places with people from different cultures and each time I arrive I need to change things but at the same time I cannot stomp in like an elephant in a crystal shop and break everything.” He won the title during his season in Thailand.

After quickfire and more difficult spells in Bulgaria and Spain, Jokanovic was offered a short-term deal at Watford, where he worked enough magic to guide the team to promotion in 2015. But club and manager failed to agree a deal to step out together in the Premier League. In hindsight was he disappointed how that ended? “I was surprised, but in the end I was satisfied because this club and its owner gave me a chance to work in England. He took some kind of risk to give me this opportunity. I believe I gave him enough back with my work. I proved myself and proved this team at that moment. They took a position. I needed to respect it. But I don’t look back, I push forward.”

I'm a good observer, I'm living in different places and each time I arrive I need to change things

The next stop on this breathless managerial hop was Maccabi Tel Aviv, where his work caught the eye in the Champions League group stages, but after six months in Israel he headed back to London and Craven Cottage.

His current spell at Fulham is already quite long by his standards, and there are already noises of bigger and better things to tempt him into another move. His ambition is obvious, but after all his managerial switches he sounds keen to make this one stick for a while.

“Actually where I am right now I am very happy and my desire is to try to be a long time in this place,” he says. “In realistic life I don’t know what will happen and I have to be ready to continue my life. I am coaching in the Championship and on TV I watch Barcelona v Juventus. Different levels exist. There is more and more and more round the corner, the next training, the next challenge, and in this way I am never satisfied. I believe it is a good state of mind to be like that. If one day I think everything is done then it’s probably time to go some place for fishing.”