Upon initial inspection, the reaction to the thought of Ange Postecoglou potentially coaching Celtic has been nothing short of hilarious to watch from the other side of the world.
I’ve never seen a manager receive such universal disapproval from a fan-base who knows nothing about them. However, maybe that’s the issue in itself: the fact that Postecoglou, as well credentialled as he is, is a relative nobody outside Australian and Japanese football.
After two domestic titles with South Melbourne, two domestic titles with Brisbane Roar (which includes a 36-game unbeaten streak), an Asian Cup and a J-League title with Yokohama F. Marinos, Postecoglou is more than qualified to move onto a big-name club in Europe.
The fact remains, however, that for all his successes, he is still not known in European circles. People with little knowledge of the round ball may ask why that is the case. The answer is Australia is not respected as a footballing nation by those around the world. Hence, there is no reason for anyone in Europe to think of Postecoglou as someone who could revolutionise their football club.
(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
From its inception in Australia, football has never been respected or accepted by Australians. Football in Australia has always been considered a second-rate sport. As difficult as this made it for the game to continue to grow, it cannot be compared to the impact the football higher-ups have had on stunting the game’s growth in Australia.
So how can we expect Australian football to be respected overseas, when we can’t even respect the game ourselves?
Poor decision after poor decision by the governing bodies have rendered Australian football a shambles and a minnow in modern-day society, which is exactly where Australians want it to be. Despite having the largest junior community in the country, Football Australia has continually failed to rally for government funding to help grow the game.
This would not have needed to be the case had the A-League been able to generate enough revenue help support the game itself, but since the 2014-15 campaign, the A-League has gone backwards. The creation of the A-League in itself was a decision that was set to doom the progress of Australian football from the start.
The nature of Australia being such a multicultural nation is well represented through football. This was only cemented by the Optus Sport series created by John Didulica, Football Belongs, which explores how 14 different nationalities have impacted football in Australia.
Football at its heart is the world game, played by anyone and everyone. It has united and divided, brought joy and tears, created and destroyed communities. When the governing body thought it was a good idea to create a league with new clubs and no ethnic ties, it effectively killed the fabric of the game in Australia, the ‘world’ element.
Football is nothing without its fans. When you disrespect the fans, you disrespect the game. What the governing body did in 2004 when they shut down the NSL and replaced it with the A-League was disrespect the whole generation of fans that built the game in Australia.
South Melbourne Hellas, Melbourne Croatia, Heidelberg Alexander, Marconi Stallions, Sydney United, Sydney Olympic, APIA Leichhardt, Sydney Hakoah, Adelaide City, West Adelaide Hellas, I could go on forever. The one thing all these clubs have in common is one thing the A-League will never have: they were not just sporting clubs.
When the NSL was disbanded, the governing body disbanded with it every community that football clubs had established. Go to an A-League game, can you honestly say the passion in the stands is real? I’d argue it’s manufactured, just like the clubs, and those who claim to be passionate probably could not tell you why they are passionate.
(Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
I attended Melbourne Victory games religiously for period of about five years in my late teens. I travelled to Sydney and Newcastle for grand finals. I thought I was passionate. I always wondered why my dad could never get invested in the A-League. Then I started being involved in the NPL.
I was attending NPL and NPL2 games on a weekly basis. I was involved in the games. I won’t say how, but I wasn’t a spectator. Having met the people involved at these clubs, you can see the love for their club is unrivalled. Then I understood why dad never liked the A-League. It was because it was a representation of a part of his life that was dismantled in front of his eyes.
He is part of a generation of fans that was disrespected. These clubs built communities, and created friendships, relationships and marriages. And when I go to the NPL, sit and the stands and listen to 80-year-old Greek men chant “A-A-Alexandros” or “Hellas Ole, Hellas Ole” in groups of no more than ten or 20, I can hear the years of emotional investment these people have put into their clubs.
What I can also hear is the disappointment that these clubs are no longer representing Australian football.
It is these clubs that produced the golden generation. Mark Viduka started at Melbourne Croatia, Mark Bresciano started at Bulleen, John Aloisi and the Vidmars started at Adelaide City, Tony Popovic and Ned Zelic started at Sydney Croatia, Mark Schwarzer started at Marconi, Kevin Muscat started at Sunshine George Cross.
Postecoglou started his coaching career at South Melbourne. Even Christian Vieri, who played 49 games for Italy, started at Marconi.
(Etsuo Hara/Getty Images)
These clubs built themselves and survived off their own boot. They produced their own talent, each played their own style of football, and managed to attract some of football’s biggest names. Ferenc Puskas coached South Melbourne. Let that sink in. A man who has a FIFA award named after him came to Australia to coach what is now an NPL club, by no fault of their own.
Terry Venables coached the national team during the peak of the NSL in the ’90s. The NSL was known and respected overseas, and had an Australian coach like Postecoglou been around in the ’90s, European fans would have no hesitation giving him a chance, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater like the Scots have done.
As hilarious as the fan reaction to Postecoglou coaching Celtic has been, it is justified. Not in the sense that Postecoglou is not a great coach – he is – and given the chance at Celtic, he could turn the club around, like he would’ve the national team.
The reaction overall is a microcosm for Australian football, a game that is not respected by its own nation, its overseas counterparts but most importantly, the people that are charged with running it.
con tripodis
Guest
Great article Tass , but you wont get any understanding from this forum , , i was a fanatical soccer man , pouring a lot of money and time in the sport , but i have lost my passion like many supporters . What they did to the NSL not saving at least the big clubs and building and bringing in some very good A league ones as well ,a mixture , was a major mistake and yes extremely disrespectful of hundreds of thousands of people , , basically i describe it as , , YOU HAVE BEEN VERY NAUGHTY LITTLE ETHNIC CHILDREN SO NOW WE ARE TAKING YOUR BALL AWAY AND YOU CAN GO HOME AND NEVER COME BACK
Voice of Reason
Roar Rookie
I must admit - while I wish Ange the best - the first thing I thought of was the mega-strop and how will he cope with the Old Firm pressure. We went to a Celtic v Rangers game years ago and it is hard to describe the atmosphere and the pressure the coach is under. It ain’t the J or A-league.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
I forgot to say Socceroos 2006 world cup match with Croatia. Obviously Viduka and Kalac with Melbourne Knights and Sydney United , I wanted to make the joke that Viduka was always MIA and Kalac was really playing for Croatia. Boom boom.
Tim Carter
Roar Pro
So British fans have good knowledge of the leagues, clubs, and players internationally, but Ange, the professional coach, is entering Scotland blindly?
RogerBroughton
Roar Rookie
England have given Croatia a good few hidings, so that's hardly an outrage. All Blacks fan were expecting to thrash England at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, because guess what? It's happened many time before.
RogerBroughton
Roar Rookie
They supported their team blindly? The horror. They should have opened their eyes and supported all the other teams.
Ad-O
Guest
...and one more thing. Never try to convince me a professional sporting body should go ask the Govt for money. I pay that money for schools and hospitals. Not because private businesses are too incompetant to make a profit or too cheap to invest in their own infrastrucure.
Ad-O
Guest
Celtic fans are right to be skeptical of Ange, I'm skeptical of Ange and I'm a Brisbane fan. I just don't see how you can discount his naive tactical display at the world cup, the socceroo's poor qualification results leading into 2018, and his ultimate strop a mere few months before the tournament began. Personally, I think he's been found out at higher levels and hasn't been able to cope well with the type of pressure that will seem like a cake walk, once he takes the job at a team with a worldwide fanbase like Celtic.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Pan Hellenic - Sydney Olympic Adelaide Juventus - Adelaide City St George Budapest - St George 1977 1984 after Lowy failed to win the vote and they went to a conference System the new mob let things go. then David Hill came and went a lot further
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
I did. Your comment still doesn’t make sense but I’d be happy for you to educate me. I’m guessing you won’t because once you link the ‘early’ settlers comment with football, you’ll realise you don’t have a point. No more so than league, anyway. Secondly, I very much doubt football screamed more ‘England’ back in the 1800s anymore than most of those other sports.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
Last World Cup I lost count of the number of English fans who believed they were going to give Croatia a good hiding and were gleefully placing their bets. That ended with a lot of egg on face. However, I agree that it has toned down so,what in recent times although Scotland fans still tend to get a bit over excited at their prospects. I wasn’t suggesting that a variety of football isn’t available, just that it isn’t consumed to any great degree compared to the domestic game. The English press regularly run stories about how much more popular the English championship is than Serie A and La Liga. It kind of suggests a fairly insular view of the game. Having said that, I have family and friends in the uk that regularly watch A League and quite enjoy it too although prior to this season the talk was often relating to playing conditions and weather!
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Also, you are mistaken if you think that in 1977 the ethnic clubs dropped their ethnic names. I'm guessing you're reading someone's whitewashed account of those early NSL seasons. This sort of encapsulates everything wrong with what has happened in the last 17 years.
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
Nah, nothing to do with high bars or downturns. For example, the Victory didn't even have enough money to join, the FFA had to take up a share in the original license - so it's got absolutely nothing to do with the finances. The old ethnic clubs were told in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome - a situation which exists to the present day.
Gnasher
Guest
Sorry, but that's just nonsense in every respect. UK viewers can watch football from just about any league in Europe on satellite and cable, as well as the UEFA tournaments, and pre-Covid it was a big thing to fly out for weekends to take in games all over the continent, from the Bernabeu to Belgrade. With clubs at all levels having squads full of overseas players and foreign coaches, there's a competitive aspect to fans doing their own talent-spotting for who their club should go for next, helped by the craze for FIFA and football manager games. And you're completely out of date about the hyping of domestic teams in international competitions too. That would have been the case twenty years ago, but consistent lack of success and the awareness that few of the better players in the domestic league are home grown - though the ratio is finally rising - means that none of the British teams go into international competitions with high hopes. Part of the joy of 2018 was to see a group of likable and unheralded young players, many of whom had come up through the lower leagues, go much further than anyone expected, while long-time recent superpowers like Germany, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, etc fell over their own feet. As for Postecglou, sure his achievements won't count for a lot on the other side of the world, but there have to be serious questions about his knowledge of the player pool he can reasonably select from. Celtic will be forced to hunt for bargains and loans from England, particularly given post-Brexit restrictions on recruiting from Europe.
Megeng
Roar Rookie
Disrespect? I'm pretty sure the founding of the a league was well intentioned by a bunch of money focused types that convinced themselves that the money only comes from broadcast deals. In this competitive football market they decided that the white bread majority wouldn't follow the old NSL teams. That was an assumption not a fact. I wonder if anyone will happily watch football if it's second rate? I'm sure that anyone would watch any ethnic based team if the football was great. The trouble with football is it's hard to watch rubbish. Other codes don't suffer as much as football in this regard. The NSL wasn't that great as I recall. Where they seem to be mistaken is thinking that they can bootstrap themselves into the second tier of global club competitions. I don't think so. The money spent overseas on players is expanding faster than ever, and we're falling farther behind. The introduction of transfer fees is a good move; it allows us to act as a development league. What we really need is promotion and relegation, which would expose a much larger bunch of players to the too league. I hope they hang in there. HIA will play into football's lap, so long as they address the header. Broadcast is changing so rapidly with technology is very hard to predict where the money is going to come from and how is going to get there. Again patience is needed. I can't see any magic solutions unless players mysteriously stop chasing the outrageous dollars.
Punter
Roar Rookie
Think about it!!!!
Punter
Roar Rookie
Trump thought he spoke the truth too. Delusion are some.
Nick Symonds
Guest
NEWS: A-League fan travels over 20,000 kilometres to support struggling Western United Western United supporter Ben Jorgensen has taken being a die-hard fan to a whole new level this season. The 18-year-old has remarkably attended all of the club's away trips over the last two years and even made it over to Wellington recently to watch his side lose 3-0 to the Phoenix. - All up, Western United have estimated that their super fan has travelled around 26,729 kilometres this past season alone, with their campaign to conclude in Gosford on Saturday against Central Coast Mariners. - "Away days are always an experience, you see new things, experience new places, you take that plunge and away you go, you get hooked on it,” Jorgensen told Western United's official website. "I knew we had to play Wellington away one more time, whenever I looked at the fixtures, and I’d hoped our game would be in New Zealand. "It’s very important to me. This club, it’s got me through some hard times personally. I’ve been in some dark places, and just to know that I’ve got the club itself, and everyone attached to it from the staff at the club to the Western Service Crew. "To know that I’ve got all those people there who are there for me, it means a lot." - https://www.sportingnews.com/au/football/news/a-league-fan-travels-over-20000-kilometres-to-support-struggling-western-united/yhipnfopnril18swe26jhjj40
Nail on the head
Guest
Precisely. We could have been qualifying for World Cups from 1950. But our intellectual superiors from Europe knew better. They ended up getting us banned from FIFA. Bravo! They reinvented the wheel and took us longer to make it there.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Apia went a long time ago and why were their crowds so low. Brunswick crowds were tiny why no support in Melbourne. Why did all those ethnic clubs join in 1977 if they had to get rid of ethnic names. The exception was the two Croatian clubs who didnt join becuase of that but they were forced to change their names later. Numerous times during the NSL they did engage in American style marketing excercises and gimmicks that were non traditional. South Melbourne Lakers etc The main difference is the financial bar was set higher and all of those clubs were in a downturn except for Brisbane Roar Hollandia of old. So they were willing to do whatever necessary but the financial situation meant they couldnt simple as that.