In what is the biggest story of the week, and perhaps years to come for sport in both Australia and its Greek community, Ange Postecoglou will become the first Aussie to manage in the Premier League, joining Tottenham Hotspur.
A major step in growing Australian football’s global reputation, the 57-year-old departs from Celtic having won five of a possible six trophies in a two year period, including a treble of the Scottish Premiership, League Cup and Scottish Cup in the same season.
There was so much doubt over Postecoglou’s arrival in Europe, with many not knowing who he was and doubting his capabilities.
Former Socceroos goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer believes the Greek Aussie proved the doubters wrong.
“I truly believe he’ll do a really good job there (Hotspur),” Schwarzer told Optus Sport.
“The step up from Yokohama to Celtic was one that a lot of people didn’t think he was capable of. People hadn’t heard of him. There were so many doubters obviously going to Celtic. He silenced all those immediately, almost.
“Since his time there he’s proven time and time again they’ve gotten better. He’s improved the squad time and time again with spending very little money in terms of the grand scheme of things.
“It’s absolutely no surprise to me whatsoever that a club in the Premier League, a big club in the Premier League, has come in for him,” Schwarzer said.
It has been a long journey for the boy from the Athens suburb of Nea Filadelfeia, one that has seen him go from immigrant to seeking to a top job in English football. Even working with this very newspaper where he wrote a column.
As aforementioned, Postecoglou was born in Greece but at age five in 1970 he and his family emigrated to Melbourne after his father Dimitris lost his cabinetmaking business after the imposition of the Greek junta dictatorship.
The Postecoglou family boarded a ship and travelled to Australia, where thousands of Greeks had immigrated with dreams of a better life.
This better life would come to Ange through football.
Life in Melbourne was not easy, but football helped the hardworking immigrants forget the hardships of being away from home.
Nine year old Ange would join South Melbourne Hellas and would rise through the youth ranks.
With the creation of the National Soccer League in 1977, Australia’s first national sport competition across all codes, Hellas and eventually Postecoglou, had somewhere to compete at the highest level.
In his first year, he saw South Melbourne clinch the championship title, and subsequently, he would establish himself in the team, eventually wearing the captain’s armband.
The arrival of Ferenc Puskas in 1989 brought another championship, and Postecoglou developed a close relationship with the legendary Hungarian, serving as his translator since Puskas didn’t know English but spoke Greek due to his time at Panathinaikos and AEK.
“I would sometimes give him a ride in my car and take him to the stadium. We talked a lot; some say I am an attacking-minded coach. The coexistence with Puskas was the… seed,” the current Tottenham coach would say years later.
However, his career as a left-back abruptly ended in the early 90s due to injury. Postecoglou had made over 190 appearances for the club and four appearances in the Australian national team between 1986 and 1988.
Following his playing days, the then 28-year-old, decided to pursue coaching.
In 1996, he ultimately took charge of the very team he played for. It was a special period for both he and the club.
Eventually Hellas changed their name due to Soccer Australia wanting to move the sport into the mainstream and remove all traces of ethnicity and migrant roots in clubs.
This didn’t sit well with the people of the Greek community in Melbourne, who saw Hellas transform into… the South Melbourne Lakers.
A name that wouldn’t last long but had caused some controversy, even catching the attention of the NBA team Los Angeles Lakers, who threatened with legal action.
With Postecoglou on the bench, South Melbourne returned to success. They won two consecutive championships in 1998 and 1999, with players like former PAOK footballer Johnny Anastasiadis, as well as a triumph in the Oceania Champions League in 99′, which sent the Australians to the FIFA Club World Cup in 2000.
The first in this format by FIFA, with the now-called South Melbourne Soccer Club, recording three defeats against Manchester United, Vasco da Gama, and Necaxa.
Postecoglou is the only person who was present in all four championships of Hellas, two as a player and two as a coach. In 2000, he left to take on the duties of the national team coach for the Australian youth teams.
He stayed with the youth teams for seven years, during which he won three Oceania U-17 Championships, but after failing to qualify for the World Cup qualifiers in 2007, he was replaced.
Next began a period of time where the now ‘greatest Australian coach’ was far from that distinction, failing to find work as a professional coach.
For the first and only time of his career, Postecoglou would go to Greece.
Not in the top division however, he found himself at third division Panachaiki in 2008.
The then 43-year-old coach, who accepted the offer of Greek-Australian owner Kostas Makris to go to Patras, lasted for almost nine months, resigning in December of that year, shortly after the club was taken over by Alexis Kougioumtzis.
Returning to Australia, Postecoglou worked briefly for the Whittlesea Zebras and also as a television commentator. He also wrote a column for the English edition of Neos Kosmos.
When Ange wrote for Neos Kosmos, he would bring the text himself to the newspaper every week.
Reflecting on this down period in an interview with Neos Kosmos in 2018, the Football Australia Hall of Famer never doubted he would return to a top job.
In a more recent interview with Neos Kosmos Postecoglou had expressed confidence in his coaching abilities.
“I don’t think too far ahead but I knew that I’d be coaching,” he revealed to Neos Kosmos.
“To me, if an opportunity didn’t open up here with Brisbane, I would have gone overseas and I’m not sure where that would have taken me, but I would have been coaching.
“There was never any doubt, even at the times that people didn’t think I deserved an opportunity. I never doubted that I’d be successful, I never stressed that much about it, I never thought too much about it and it’s worked out okay.”
He then began a period working in the A-League. He joined Brisbane Roar in 2009, and in his two and half years there, he led the club to back-to-back championships, a premiership and consecutive qualification for the AFC Champions league.
Former Roar skipper Matt Smith recently spoke about how ruthless Postecoglou can be when building a squad to his standard, something Tottenham fans should expect.
“It didn’t matter if you were the biggest player in the dressing room or the youngest,” Smith told BBC Sport.
“If you weren’t pulling your weight or following his principles he was very ruthless.”
Following his stint in Queensland, Postecoglou returned to Melbourne, joining Melbourne Victory.
The ruthlessness would be seen again, with the manager releasing a number of star players and signing just as many new ones to replace them. The next year he would take them to a preliminary final, losing 2-0 however.
And then came the take-off to worldwide recognition for Postecoglou, first with the Australian national team, taking them to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, then Yokohama Marinos in Japan, and more recently Celtic in Scotland.
There has been many congratulations and celebration for the Melburnian, with the most high profile being from Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, who is delighted with Postecoglou’s arrival to England.
The legendary manager and Postecoglou crossed paths in 2019 when the latter led Yokohama F.Marinos in a friendly against City.
“Another exceptional manager is coming,” Guardiola told reporters.
“I was lucky to meet him in Tokyo years ago when he was manager at Yokohama, one of our clubs in the City Football Group, and it was an interesting chat.
“I have a good relationship with the owner of Celtic Glasgow.
“He did an incredible job (at Celtic) and he will do an incredible job for Spurs.”
It has been a long journey for Ange Postecoglou, from the dictatorship led Athens, to the working class streets of Melbourne’s south, from the bustling city of Tokyo, to world class stage of European and UK football. The boy from Nea Filadelfeia and more so, Melbourne, has made Australians and Greeks very proud.
