- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
“Apart from coaching I have a real drive to build a football club, which I don’t think really exists here in Australia,” said Ange Postecoglou when he was appointed coach of Brisbane Roar.
Who would have thought that when the Roar appointed Postecoglou as Frank Farina’s successor back in October 2009, the club he would go on to build would stand on the brink of breaking a 74-year-old Australian sports record?
If Brisbane beat Perth Glory at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night, they’ll surpass the Eastern Suburbs rugby league side that went 35 games undefeated in the NSW Rugby League competition during the 1930s.
But unlike the Roosters, the Roar will have done it in a salary-capped, transnational competition where every team has a reasonable chance of beating another.
That wasn’t quite the case for the all-conquering Roosters, who smashed the amateur students from Sydney University every time they played them during their 35-game unbeaten run.
Nor was it so for the Geelong VFL side that went 23 games unbeaten during the 1950s, when the furthest they had to travel was to the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond and Hawthorn, not Wellington and Perth.
And unlike the Roosters and Geelong – who had years of winning records behind them – Postecoglou inherited a team in disarray following Farina’s sacking, taking over a fractured playing squad rife with internal dissent.
When asked by the ABC’s 7.30 Report how Roar supporters might have reacted to his clear-out of senior personnel at the club during a difficult transitional phase, Postecoglou shrugged and said, “what’s this bloke doing?”
What he was doing was transforming an old boys club featuring the likes of veterans Charlie Miller and Danny Tiatto into one of the most entertaining football teams this country has ever seen.
Perhaps the most impressive facet of the Roar’s undefeated run isn’t so much that they remain unbeaten, but rather the fact they’ve dispatched so many of their opponents with such a rakishly attractive swagger.
I remember the Adelaide City side of the early 1990s with Zoran Matic at the helm, who was a masterful tactician and arguably Postecoglou’s direct forerunner.
But the players I mostly remember are the likes of Alex Tobin and Sergio Melta – strong, imposing figures who possessed as much mettle as they did tactical guile.
What Postecoglou has built his side around are genuinely exciting attacking talents like Mitch Nichols and Henrique and it will be years before we see another import of Thomas Broich’s calibre in the A-League.
No disrespect to Perth Glory but it will be a travesty if the Roar lose to them on Saturday night.
Not only will breaking the record raise football’s profile among media and the general public, it will also write the Roar into the history books for years to come.
Nevertheless, it’s still an uphill struggle for the Roar to command respect from the diehards on the NRL and AFL scenes and occasionally from within certain sections of the football community as well.
If Melbourne Victory had embarked on such a run we’d probably have read double the column inches about it, while one particular sports fan on an online forum dismissed the Roar’s efforts because – and I kid you not – it was nothing compared to the Harlem Globetrotters’ unbeaten streak!
Yet when he took over at the Roar, Postecoglou spelled out his intentions to not only make Brisbane a winning team but also to build a winning culture based on exciting, attacking football.
Most coaches would have left it at that but for Postecoglou, actions clearly speak louder than words.
The club he wanted to build are on the brink of something great and Brisbane will be desperate to hold their nerve against the Glory on Saturday night.
And as far as I’m concerned their unbeaten streak is one of the best stories we’ve seen in years – not just in the A-League, but all of Australian sport.