He is rightly recognised as one of the best managers Australia has seen, but Ange Postecoglou risks losing his lustre if Melbourne Victory go trophyless this season.
The two-time A-League championship and two-time National Soccer League championship-winning manager is seen as one of the frontrunners for the Socceroos top job if it becomes available in coming years, but that’s if he doesn’t first get a gig at the helm of a European club.
He built this reputation for himself after two sensational seasons at Brisbane Roar, during which he single-handedly raised the bar for the standard of football in Australia.
The style and success of Roar under the guidance of Postecoglou captured the attention and imagination of fans, players, pundits and anyone with an interest in the A-League.
A move then to Melbourne Victory, just days after his second grand final triumph with Brisbane, was seen as a match made in heaven.
A Melbourne-born managerial genius returning home to pair with the A-League’s biggest and best-resourced club – not just Melbourne Victory fans were expecting big things.
Yet after an embarrassing 2011-12 season for the club under Mehmet Durakovic and Jim Magilton, it would have been beyond expectations for Postecoglou to right the Victory ship as well as steer it to silverware in his first season.
But after a third place finish, he has successfully banished the ghosts of 2011-12 and now the ever-demanding Victory faithful have turned their eyes to the trophy cabinet.
As if the weight of the fans’ expectations wasn’t enough, Postecoglou himself has also piled on the pressure to produce the goods this season.
Put simply, you cannot ruthlessly cut players on the scale Postecoglou has and have any hope of maintaining your reputation, or even your job, if you do not win trophies.
Since he arrived at Victory 18 months ago, an incredible 21 players (not including three players on loan) have felt the kiss of Postecoglou’s axe.
Granted, Postecoglou would have preferred to hold on to players like Marco Rojas and Billy Celeski, but he saw the majority of them as dead wood and the total number of departures during his tenure is enough with which to make an entirely new A-League squad.
Postecoglou, in that time, has brought in 17 new faces as part of his radical rebuild.
The squad is now well and truly his and he must produce.
This is of course reminiscent of his beginnings at Brisbane Roar when he axed experienced veterans Craig Moore, Charlie Miller and Bob Malcolm, and froze out another in Danny Tiatto.
While those decisions initially drew much criticism, they proved to be absolute masterstrokes as the Roar went on to become one of the most celebrated and dominant teams Australian football has ever known.
This season will certainly be a critical one for Postecoglou.
Will he fall short and be exposed as a one hit wonder who just happened to do well at Brisbane?
Or can he justify his savage rebuild of the Victory squad and lift his already lofty reputation to new heights by winning silverware?
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