As Ange Postecoglou’s face gazed down at him from the MCG scoreboard screen and 300 business folk hung on his every slightly jet-lagged word, he ruminated on how it was to be serenaded by Rod Stewart in Glasgow and Robbie Williams at Tottenham Hotspur.
“It’s fair to say my life has changed a bit,” he said with characteristic dry humour. “I used to go to the pub and watch Cold Chisel play when I was here.”
Ange Postecoglou coaching Spurs against Liverpool this month.Credit: Getty Images
Metamorphosis is true for him on the field as well as off. When his managerial odyssey began with South Melbourne in the now-defunct NSL in his early-30s, Postecoglou was answerable to his father, Jim – “a man of his generation, not too many kind words or cuddles” – and to a South Melbourne committee made up mostly of men from the Greek diaspora like his father.
“It’s fair to say the South Melbourne board was like 10 of my dads telling me every week what I’d done wrong,” he said. Jim died in 2018 and it should be noted that Postecoglou misses him every day.
Now, having gone up the scales from Australia and the Socceroos through Japan and Celtic in Scotland’s famous Old Firm, he speaks to and for one of the world’s biggest clubs in arguably the world’s highest-profile football competition, the English Premier League.
He feels the eyeballs on him. “That the biggest difference,” he said. “To me, it’s still football. The fundamentals are the same. But there’s a hell of a lot more scrutiny and attention. You can’t avoid it. It’s on the telly 24/7. It’s everywhere you look. You need to embrace that side of it.
“A lot of people thought I’d struggle with it. For me, that’s what I’m craving my whole career. The frustrating thing for me was when I was in environments where people didn’t care as much at times. Whereas now, I’m smack bang in the middle of the football universe.”
At the nadir of his unprecedented career arc, Postecoglou was sacked as Australia’s under-20s coach before brief undistinguished stints with Panachaiki in the Greek third division and Whittlesea Zebras in Melbourne. Looking down from giddy heights now, he thinks those humble origins were his making in two ways.
Postecoglou (left) in 1998 after coaching South Melbourne to a win over Carlton in the NSL grand final.Credit: Vince Caligiuri
One is that he knows soccer at every gritty level, unlike some counterparts who have spent their lives since boyhood playing and coaching in the super leagues. “I literally started on the factory floor,” he said. “I’ve done every job in football. Obviously, I don’t do everything now. I try to lead and delegate a lot. But I’ve done them all, mate.”
The other is that people still don’t take him and his provenance seriously. A meme of former Scottish international Alan Brazil’s incredulous reaction when Postecoglou was appointed at Celtic is worth looking up still. “I still get the ‘who’s this bloke?’. I don’t mind that,” he said. “People have underestimated me my whole career. You get used to it. I used to get it here.”
Postecoglou with Tim Cahill after Australia’s 2015 Asian Cup triumph.Credit: Brendan Esposito
The currency in Postecoglou’s magic carpet ride of a career is the only one in sport guaranteed to be honoured: success. He won two titles as a player and two as a manager at South Melbourne, took Brisbane Roar to back-to-back A-League titles, the Socceroos to Asian Cup triumph, Yokohama F. Marinos to the championship of Japan’s competitive J League, and Celtic to successive titles before alighting at Spurs for the season just ended.
He prides himself on an attacking style that sceptics thought would prove naive in the Premier League. They were right and wrong. In a rousing start, Spurs were unbeaten in the first 10 games, and he was twice manager of the month. It all unravelled in a home game against Chelsea in November in which Spurs took the lead before losing two key players and having two others sent off, persevering with offence anyway and losing 1-4.
“My first year, wherever I’ve been, is alway fairly turbulent,” Postecoglou said. “I knew it was coming at some point.
“In about a half-an-hour spell, we lost pretty much a quarter of our team for the next two to three months. After that game, I knew from then it was going to be a tough grind. But we were never out of the top five the whole year.”
Postecoglou with his family after Celtic won the Scottish Cup in May last year.Credit: Getty Images
He was unrepentant about Spurs’ refusal to bunker down that night. “The players initiated it,” he said. “I knew at that point they’d bought into it.”
Postecoglou and Tottenham are making a lightning visit to Melbourne to play Newcastle United in a friendly at the MCG on Wednesday before they return to London and the drawing board. The new season, which for Spurs will include European football again, starts in mid-August.
Postecoglou admits that a big-league manager never clocks off. “There’s no work-life balance. That’s the reality of it,” he said. “I find it easy to switch off whilst still doing what I’m doing – [to] watch a game of football, watch other sports with my coach’s head on. I feel the need to be engaged all the time. It’s my most comfortable space.”
Postecoglou acknowledges the Spurs faithful after a win.Credit: Tottenham Hostpur FC
He paid tribute to his wife, Georgia, who was the marketing manager at South Melbourne when they met, for fortifying him. “She runs everything in my life apart from the football,” he said. “She’s stepped into that role a couple of times. She’s not short of advice, which is fair enough because she’s usually right anyway, and if she’s not, I tell her she is.”
Postecoglou said Melbourne still felt like home, though after five years in the northern hemisphere, he’d forgotten how far away it was. As a true Melburnian, the MCG looms large in his mental archive. “I was telling the lads I went to the Centenary Test in ’77,” he said. “That was pretty special. It was a cracking game and I love my cricket.”
‘Sometimes in the most barren ground, the most beautiful things will grow. I certainly think that’s the case with football.’
Ange Postecoglou
He coached the Socceroos at the MCG against Brazil and Melbourne Victory against Liverpool, so when the time came on Tuesday, he knew the door to take for the fast getaway.
Postecoglou in Melbourne on Tuesday with Tottenham skipper Son Heung-min.Credit: Getty Images
Also, as a true Greek Melburnian – born in Greece, in fact – he cleaves proudly to his heritage. Cheekily, he was asked if he might one day coach Greece. “It’s definitely in my future that you’ll see me in Greece,” he said, “but it’s more likely to be on an island and a sunbed.”
The Spurs-Newcastle game starts a mini-carnival of soccer. In a double-header at Marvel Stadium on Friday, Newcastle play the A-League All-Stars , and Arsenal’s women’s team – featuring three Matildas – will face the A-League women’s All-Stars. On Saturday, Central Coast Mariners host Melbourne Victory in the A-League men’s grand final.
From afar, Postecoglou still monitors the Australian scene with a paternal mixture of pride and concern. “There’s obviously some challenges that, to be honest, have always been there,” he said. “I’ve always felt it’s not the most fertile ground, but whatever does grow, it’s pretty nice. We’re still getting young guys over there [Europe], and now the girls are just smashing it.
“Sometimes in the most barren ground, the most beautiful things will grow. I certainly think that’s the case with football.”
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