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Celtic target Ange Postecoglou an Australian coach without equal and Sunderland missed out
There are few people better placed than Peter Filopoulos to assess the coaching odyssey of Ange Postecoglou.
By Andrew Smith
Tuesday, 1st June 2021, 6:48 pm
It isn’t merely that he remembers vividly the first steps taken in the domain by the Yokahama F Marinos coach who is now frontrunner for the Celtic managerial post. Filopoulos made that “transition” happen in their Australian homeland back in the early-1990s. It started Postecoglou on a road where the 55-year-old has now left every other like him trailing in his wake. “I would say Ange is the greatest and most successful coach we have produced in any sporting code,” said Filopoulos, now head of marketing, communications and corporate affairs with the Football Federation of Australia. “His story is so unique since we first met as young men.”
They did so with Filopoulos as the youthful general manager of South Melbourne, where Postecoglou had excelled as a player before suffering a career-shortening injury. The club’s progressive board identified that leadership qualities and game knowledge Postecoglou had brought to bear in captaining the club to the second of two championships shouldn’t see two-decade association with it end because of a knee problem.
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Postecoglou’s response to being made an assistant to Frank Arok in 1993 told them they were right. “He immediately immersed himself in sports science, continued to work in a bank and even coached the famous private school Melbourne Grammar as he learned,” said Filopoulos. When the decision was taken to replace Arok three games before the end of the 1995-96 season, Postecoglou earned his big break. “And the rest, as they say, is history,” said Filopoulos. “He won all three games, as the pressure was immediately on him to do, and from there won back-to-back titles with South Melbourne, and has improved and developed players and teams in every subsequent role.”
Most recently, with a 2019 title that was his current club’s first in the J-League for 15 years, which followed leading Australia to the World Cup finals of 2014 and 2018, AFC Asian Cup success of 2015, having earlier claimed championship honours with Brisbane Roar. Celtic’s failed pursuit of Eddie Howe has led to the club’s support presenting Postecoglou as a two-bit, untried alternative. That bemuses Filopoulos.
“The guy has 25 years of experience at the sharp end,” he said. “I hear it said he will need time, and he does look to reshape comprehensively. But his mindset is that every football job has to be two-track: as you remodel behind the scenes, you have to win, and win with finesse. He has worked for clubs expected to succeed in every game and that wouldn’t trouble him at Celtic. If he does get the job, he will feed off being backed into a corner, having doubts expressed. That is when he works best. He is always challenged by his environment, but he will also challenge that environment: challenge not only players but directors and the entire culture, because he constantly strives to upscale parameters. In my 30 years working in sport I have never encountered a coach as meticulous in their preparation. To explain how highly I rate him, I would make this claim. He was linked with the Sunderland job in late 2017. If he had been appointed then, they could be in the Premier League now, not the third tier.”
Celtic appoint Ange Postecoglou as new football manager
By Celtic Football Club
Jun 10 2021
Celtic Football Club is delighted to announce that it has appointed Ange Postecoglou to the position of Football Manager.
Ange joins Celtic from Yokohama F. Marinos, where he has delivered the J League title. Previously he has also won Premiership and Championship Titles in Australia’s A League.
As Head Coach of the Australian National team, Ange lifted the Asian Cup in 2015, the first time the country had ever won this title. Ange also managed the Australian national team at the FIFA World Cup in 2014 in Brazil and led Australia to qualification in 2018 in Russia.
A modern, progressive coach with exciting, attacking football as his philosophy, Ange has received a host of prestigious coaching accolades, including being named as Australia’s PFA Manager of the decade in 2015.
Ange has successfully achieved UEFA recognition and endorsement in relation to his pro-Licence issued by Football Australia. He begins working immediately and will be arriving in Glasgow as soon as current protocols allow.
Ange will meet up with the squad at Lennoxtown and will then lead the team to the Club’s pre-season training camp.
Ange is delighted to join the Club and take up one of the biggest jobs in world football, and having signed a 12-month rolling contract, commented: “The opportunity that has been given to me is one of the greatest honours in football and the responsibility to lead our magnificent football club into the future is one that I will cherish dearly.
“Celtic is one of THE names in world football, of that there is no doubt – a giant of a club, a proper footballing institution and so much more – real history, real substance, real authenticity and real soul. I know Celtic is a true way of life for so many people and I know the demands which come with this position – I am ready to do all I can to meet those demands.
“I will be doing everything I can to get our great Club back on top and, at the same time, deliver the kind of football which our fans appreciate. We want to entertain our fans and we want to win, these are the objectives which I always set myself and which I now begin work on.
“When you think of Celtic, you think of supporters and my dream is to see our fans back at Celtic Park with us as soon as possible. We all hope things are changing for the better and can see our fans soon as they are vital to everything I want to do. We need our supporters back by our side and I can’t wait to be with them back in a packed Paradise.
“I have already had great discussions with Peter, Dom and the Board about their ideas and strategy for the future of the club. I know the Club’s new modern vision aligns very much with mine and we now look to go and deliver on this. In everything we do we aim to give our fans a successful team of real quality, which they are excited about and can be proud of.
“We have already begun work on our plans for adding to the squad – we aim to bring players of quality to Celtic to enhance the existing core of great talent.
“I very much look forward to meeting with the players on their return from the close season break and I can’t wait to get started as Celtic Manager.”
Who Is Ange Postecoglou, The Australian Linked With The Celtic Manager Job?
Mike Meehall Wood
Mike Meehall WoodContributor
Covering NRL, cricket and other Aussie sports in Forbes.
May 30, 2021,10:50pm EDT|5,913 views
Shanghai SIPG v Yokohama F.Marinos – AFC Champions League Group H
AL WAKRAH, QATAR – NOVEMBER 25: Yokohama coach Ange Postecoglou during the AFC Champions League … [+] Getty Images
First off, this article has to start with a disclaimer. I’m a Celtic fan, and have written about the club for years. I’m also an Australian sports journalist, covering the National Rugby League and Aussie cricket from here in Sydney. I state these facts because wandering blindly in the debate that has sprung up over the weekend has seen many well-informed people told that they just don’t understand. So, at the risk of being pilloried by both #FitbaTwitter and #SokkahTwitter, there you have it.
When the news dropped on Saturday morning Sydney time that Ange Postecoglou, probably Australia’s most celebrated football manager, was linked with the vacancy at Celtic, one of European football’s most historic clubs, the general reaction was outrage from the Scottish part of the internet, and excitement from the small part of Australian society that cares about football.
The reaction takes two forms. In Scotland, the idea that the nation’s perennial champions (nine of the last ten championships, and 14 of the last 20) would have a coach from a country in which football is (at best) the fourth most popular sport and whose domestic competition is (at best) globally peripheral, is ludicrous. Simply by dint of provenance, Postecoglou was unacceptable.
On the other side, Aussies saw Postecoglou as finally getting his crack, the culmination of years of success. In Australia, few would argue that Postecoglou is one of the pre-eminent coaches of the A-League era: he’s won multiple titles, led the national team to continental success and overseen a youth development program that has seen Australia qualify for four consecutive World Cups.
It is, of course, possible that Ange Postecoglou is the best Australian manager ever, and yet still too small a figure for Celtic, because ultimately, football is a very globally unbalanced sport.
His prospective appointment, from Celtic side of things, makes little sense. Celtic were all in for Eddie Howe, the former Bournemouth boss, until the end of last week. For them to move straight for Postecoglou shows a total lack of joined-up thinking: Howe is big name English manager, with an established reputation and drawing power for players, whereas Postecoglou is at his core at coach, used to working in a competition with a salary cap and in national team setups, where the emphasis is on developing the players that you already have.
The players aspect is vital. Celtic are likely to lose all their best players this transfer window: Odsonne Edouard, their star striker, and Kristoffer Ajer, their best defender, will undoubtedly leave. Scott Brown, captain for the last decade, is already out the door. Whoever takes over will have to begin to rebuild a team from scratch.
Celtic aren’t like normal clubs, either, because their season starts meaningfully in July with the Champions League qualifiers, so a new manager will have six weeks to get something together with no backroom staff, no captain and with all his best players away at the European Championships.
Celtic have been without a permanent manager since February, when Neil Lennon resigned the job after a disastrous campaign. Howe was the top candidate, and presumably the only candidate for four months until last week.
Whatever perception there is that Ange Postecoglou is unqualified because he’s Australian, you can double that with the perception that he’s also a distant second choice. It looks like the managerial equivalent of walking around the dancefloor at the end of the night looking for someone to take home because you’ve been rejected by your crush.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that Ange Postecoglou, context aside, is probably the sort of manager that Celtic should be looking at.
Dutch Eredivisie″NAC Breda v sc Heerenveen″
(L-R) Football Partnerships and Pathways Manager Fergal Harkin of Manchester City Football Club, … [+] VI-Images via Getty Images
Many supporters, myself included, have called for a shake-up at the structural level, with a Director of Football/Head Coach model instead of the all-encompassing manager. In that context, a combination of Postecoglou, a developer of players, and a Director of Football above him handling recruitment, makes perfect sense.
That Director of Football could well be Fergal Harkin. He’s currently the Football Partnerships and Pathways Manager at Manchester City, and hotly tipped to move up to Glasgow. Celtic’s CEO is Peter Lawwell, but he will soon retire. Former Scotland Rugby Union executive Dominic McKay will assume the role and, potentially, bring in the Harkin-Postecoglou combination. Peter Lawwell’s son, Mark Lawwell, is Head of Scouting and Recruitment at City Football Group, the wider group of clubs under the Manchester City banner that covers Melbourne City, New York City FC, Mumbai City, Girona and others.
Ange Postecoglou is currently in charge at Yokohama F Marinos, the Japanese outpost of CFG, so both Harkin and Lawwell junior are well aware of his work. The links between Celtic and CFG are well known: players such as Jeremie Frimpong, Olivier Ntcham, Patrick Roberts, Daniel Arzani, Jason Denayer and Dedryck Boyata have all travelled north from Manchester since CFG took over in 2013.
It’s worth pointing out that, had Celtic gone for this model from the start, most Celtic fans would have been happy to see a coach signed from the CFG system, and taken that as an indication of a significant cultural change.
Enzo Maresca, who recently took over at Parma in Italy’s Serie B, was linked with the Parkhead role in his previous position as manager of Manchester City’s Elite Development Squad. Maresca is yet to manage a first team game, while Postecoglou has managed hundreds of them very successfully, but the cultural weight is heavily stacked against him.
It’s worth going into just how successful Postecoglou has been as a manager, and if you’d like to insert the caveat of “in Australia”, feel free to. His Brisbane Roar team were known as “Roarcelona” due to their playing style, which was seen to ape that of the great Barcelona teams under Pep Guardiola, now, of course, at Manchester City. Roar won two consecutive A-Leagues, including a 36 match unbeaten run, which is an achievement in any competition but a phenomenal one in one of the few football competitions that operates with a salary cap.
He then took Melbourne Victory from 8th to 3rd, then led Australia to a better than expected performance at the 2014 World Cup, won them the 2015 Asian Cup, then qualified them for the 2018 World Cup. Oh, and he won Yokohama their first Japanese title in 15 years.
Postecoglou is undoubtedly a good coach, with a proven track record in youth development. Throw in that he’s used to working at CFG, where high analytics and scouting are the best to be found anywhere, and that he’ll likely be working with a guy poached from that same system, and it seems like a great hire. Were he called Enzo Maresca, who Celtic fans have heard of from his playing career, it would probably be seen as innovative.
Jesse Marsch, recently promoted from Red Bull Salzburg to Red Bull Leipzig, was touted as a potential next Celtic manager and was welcomed excitedly, despite also being from a non-traditional football nation, the United States. Had Celtic signed him direct from New York Red Bulls, and not from Salzburg, he would have faced the same ire that Postecoglou faces.
Ultimately, there is a lack of respect (potentially deserved) for Australian soccer, and that is the biggest obstacle in front of Postecoglou. As an archetype of the sort of manager that Celtic should hire, he fits.
Fundamentally, however, football isn’t played or managed by archetypes. As with any cultural change, the biggest single factor is buy in: how much are the players and fans actually going to go along with what you are saying? In Australia, and to a lesser extent in Japan, Postecoglou had that. He’s been a towering figure within Australian soccer over the last twenty-five years, and a legend in wider Asian football circles, so commands respect.
In Scotland, almost nobody has heard of him and he has the wrong accent. Scottish football is even more parochial than most, and Glasgow’s football environment would compete with anywhere in the world for parochialism. It’s been quite funny, as someone with a foot in both Sydney and Scotland, to see the innate parochiality of Australian sport, where only Aussie Rules and rugby league matter, clash with the Glasgow goldfish bowl, where only two clubs matter.
Were the roles reversed, and, say, a GAA coach was brought in to coach an Aussie Rules team, or an English coach hired by a club in the National Rugby League, the reaction would be exactly the same. What can he teach us about our thing that we don’t already know?
Celtic often suffer from the idea that the manager has to “get the club”, as if Scotland played a different game to everywhere else. While this is the peak of Scottish parochialism, the pressure of managing Celtic is huge, and will be more than Postecoglou has ever faced before.
Even as manager of the Australian national team, you’re only ever the third most important sport in a media environment that has 16 NRL clubs, plus New South Wales and Queensland, then another 18 AFL clubs to talk about, then cricket, then whatever else. Getting on the back page at all is an achievement.
In Scotland, Celtic and Rangers make the front page, the back page and much of the in between. The USP of Scottish football is how intense it is. While it might be useful on a footballing level to be apart from that, on a day-to-day level, Postecoglou will have much to learn.
In the past, he has struggled with the media at times and gave up the Australia job because of the toll it took on him. Four years managing the Socceroos is probably the equivalent of four days managing Celtic in terms of media scrutiny. Throw in that Celtic are on the back of their worst season in decades and you can hike that up further.
There is a perception in Scotland that Postecoglou has been hired because he doesn’t have a profile, and will thus be malleable to the whims of the Celtic board. Those who think that don’t know very much about Ange Postecoglou.
If given the job, he’ll have strong ideas about what he wants to do with it. If Celtic hire him as part of a wider cultural change towards a coach-first, development-based structure, then it might work out.
If the new hierarchy expect him to win immediately, as fans certainly will do, then he’s doomed to failure from the start, because the problems run deeper than who the coach is. They need to back him as they would a bigger name, allow him to go to work improving the players that he already has, while redeveloping the team with new faces identified through a competent scouting system.
Whoever the coach is, Celtic need to change the culture from one that can’t see past the end of its nose, to one that is geared for long-term sustainable success. It’s possible that Ange Postecoglou is the man to oversee the first step of that.
Ange Postecoglou the ‘purist’: Celtic coach offers deep insight into his football philosophy ahead of its stern test
Rightly or wrongly, it can feel Europe is where Ange Postecoglou’s purist brand of football will encounter the sort of tests that increasingly have seemed to demand a degree of pragmatism.
By Andrew Smith
Tuesday, 17th August 2021, 10:30 pm
Ange Postecoglou was his Celtic team to play attractive football and says his ideals are based on watching Johan Cruyff.
The Celtic manager appears comfortable with such a perception as he prepares his all-out-attack-designed, goal-hungry side for the challenge of AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League play-off, Glasgow first leg, on Wednesday evening. Just as the 55-year-old doesn’t blanche at the suggestion the purist label is a snug fit for him. Meanwhile, it can be considered a neat quirk the opposition that will offer the litmus test of his spectacular revitalisation of the club’s form hail from a Dutch nation he would argue patented football purism.
“[My football] is purist in my terminology, but I’m sure there are plenty of people that have different opinions of what a football pursuit is, and how football should be played,” Postecoglou said. “And I love that about the game. It is one of those where you can play so many different ways and have success. But this for me is the football I love to watch. I see other teams playing aggressive, attacking football, they are games I switch on and watch. They are the football teams I want to produce.
“What the terminology is around that, that’s for others to judge. But I’ve yet to meet a group of supporters or a group of players who don’t enjoy scoring goals, and creating fantastic moments. That’s why I concentrate on that style of football.”
As have the Dutch, the impact of their brand of football having a huge role to play in the development of Postecoglou’s football ethos. “Even historically, in Australian football there has been a Dutch influence. Guus Hiddink took us to the World Cup in 2006 and since then we’ve seen people from Holland and the Netherlands acknowledging us,” he said.
“My origins are I was a massive fan of Johan Cruyff, massive fan of that Ajax team, and my father was. That sort-of led me to look at the aesthetics of football, rather than just the end result. I’ve always admired and been intrigued by it because ultimately we know that results are what matters in football. So having this thought process that maybe what it looks like is just as important as the result has always intrigued me. It’s finding that balance between creating something that’s beautiful to the eye but also brings you success. Because otherwise you are just one of these unemployed, destitute artists that admires their own work but don’t make a living.”
Of late, Scottish clubs have tended to eke out an existence in European competition by eschewing the stylistic considerations non-negotiable for the 55-year-old. Celtic’s 2012 defeat of Barcelona, a 2-1 victory that made for their most fabled night in continental competition over the past decade, was the product of blanket defence, and only 16.4 per cent of possession. The club’s first win in Italy, earned with the 2-1 success over Lazio in Rome two years ago, required elements of rope-a-dope. Under Steven Gerrard, and before him Walter Smith, Rangers have enjoyed prosperity in Europe through proceeding with utmost caution, and soaking up pressure. Not for Postecoglou. In cross-border competition, the hill he will live or die on will be the product of daring his men to charge over it.
“I’m not critical of that because it has still brought some special moments,” he said of what worked for Celtic against Barcelona and Lazio. “That is one way of doing it, absolutely, and there are fantastic examples all round the world throughout the history of football where you have managers and clubs that have taken that approach. It’s just not my approach.
“I’d rather play Barcelona and out-possess them and out-score them than not. If you do that and you lose five-zero, people will be coming for you saying ‘why didn’t you play more pragmatically’. It’s just not the way I’m wired, and what I look for. I’d rather go down swinging then than hope to just stay on my feet. You know, it’s just my philosophy. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. But I do think that certain clubs have certain values. If you look back at this football club – I don’t need to tell you guys, you know this history better than me – the greatest successes have been built on teams that had belief; entertainers that played without fear. And I love that aspect of the game.”
Celtc supporters can prepare to buckle up for Postecoglou’s team swashing, then. It will be a thrill ride the Australian is convinced can create a legacy, with Europa League group-stage football crucial to that aim.
“The traditions and values are that this football club has always made an impact in Europe, one way or another,” he said. “That’s the opportunity that has been given to me, and it’s definitely a motivation for sure. Long after I’m gone, I hope to have made any impact at this fantastic football club. That’s what we all want to do. If you’re a manager, you want to do things that you hope outlast your own tenure. That’s the opportunity in Europe.
“The most important thing for me is still the football. I just want everyone talking about the football we are playing. If they keep doing that, the success will be for everyone to share. I want it to be success built on something special. I want people talking about the football we are playing. That, to me, is the primary target. Wherever I have done that, the rest sort of cascades into it.”
How Ferenc Puskas sculpted Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou’s football philosophy and career
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou spoke about the major influence Hungary and Real Madrid great Ferenc Puskas has had on his career ahead of his side’s meeting with Ferencvaros.
By Gavin McCafferty
Monday, 18th October 2021, 4:38 pm
Postecoglou played under Puskas for South Melbourne from 1989 to 1992 and formed a close bond before embarking on his own managerial career at the same club.
The Greek-born Australian largely shares a football philosophy with Puskas, who helped transform the game with Hungary and Real, and learnt a lot about leadership from his mentor.
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“I was fortunate enough to spend a few years with the great Ferenc Puskas, an absolute gentleman, and someone who holds a very dear place in my heart,” Postecoglou said. “He looked after me for two or three years, we had a very close relationship.
“I was captain of South Melbourne and he was one of the biggest legends of the game. If you are talking about the greatest ever, he makes that list of players.
“He was just a gentleman. From the moment he wandered through he was just humble. We were constantly pestering him to tell us stories about Real Madrid, what he did at Hampden, what he did at Wembley.
“He was forever downplaying everything and it just showed you the greatness of the man was just his humility in dealing with people.
“I was lucky because, when he came to Australia his English wasn’t great, but he had coached Panathinaikos to a European Cup final. So his Greek was decent. So I acted almost as an interpreter.
“I used to pick him up from his house and drive him to training in my old car, which I was embarrassed about. We swapped stories and his philosophy to football was basically just go out and enjoy yourselves and score goals.
“We used to play with two wingers and he was forever telling our wingers never to come back and defend. I was a full-back so it used to infuriate me, but we won a championship with him.
“I was really sad when he passed away because when he left Australia I wasn’t able to reconnect with him when I got older and became a manager myself. I would have loved to thank him personally for the influence he was, as a man as much as he was as a coach.”
Postecoglou has brought those lessons to Glasgow as he sets about instilling his attacking style of play.
“It certainly highlighted how important as a leader that people believe in you,” the 56-year-old said. “We certainly believed in him.
“I am totally different to him. He was the most humble man, where he would just talk with everyone and you could spend hours with him. I am not as social as he was in that respect.
“But he showed as a leader that you don’t have to rule by fear at all times. It was like playing for your grandfather, you just didn’t want to let him down. He just had that aura about him.
“That was pretty strong in terms of showing me that as a leader people you are working with need to believe in you as much as your ideas. That was certainly really evident with the atmosphere he created at training and at the club.”
‘They had to Google me’: How Aussie Ange built a team ‘from scratch’ and proved critics wrong
Ange’s Celtic crush Rangers in Old Firm
Ange’s Celtic crush Rangers in Old Firm | 01:14
Zac Rayson
Zac Rayson from Fox Sports
February 3rd, 2022 12:36 pm
“I’ve had some special moments in football,” a beaming Ange Postecoglou declared to Sky Sports, “but tonight’s atmosphere was one of them.”
More than 50,000 Celtic fans packed into their iconic stadium to witness the best 90 minutes of football the side has delivered this season.
A crushing victory – 3-0 against their great rivals Rangers – saw them leap atop the table and claim supremacy in the bitter Old Firm rivalry.
Rangers fans remain locked out of Celtic Park, such is the fierceness of one of sport’s greatest stoushes. But on a day like today, that was probably a blessing in disguise.
Celtic had not beaten Rangers in six league attempts dating back to September 2019. They had not beaten them in any competition since December that year, a full 787 days ago.
No wonder Postecoglou told SEN Radio today: “It means a hell of a lot.”
REPORT: ‘Defining day’ for Ange, Celtic as biggest rivals destroyed in 787-day stunner
Celtic strike early in Old Firm derby!
Celtic strike early in Old Firm derby! | 00:49
The victory will see Celtic at the peak of the league table come the end of a round for the first time since August 2020, the very first round of last season. Celtic fell short of Rangers by 25 points last year as nine consecutive years of league glory came tumbling down in the most humiliating fashion. Not only were they utterly humbled in the league, but they failed to reach the final of any cup competition – with Rangers to blame for their exit in one knockout tournament. Manager Neil Lennon was out the door two months before the season ended, leaving behind a squad in tatters.
Enter Ange.
12 first-team players left and 10 arrived in a matter of weeks as the Australian mastermind took a sledgehammer to the squad. The club’s newly-appointed CEO who boldly signed Postecoglou in June left 72 days later. Celtic failed in two top European competitions in his early days, while he lost three of his first six games – including his first Old Firm derby back in August. And from the first training session to today, Postecoglou has been forced to battle an injury curse that has frequently robbed him of his top players.
But Postecoglou has never faltered in the face of the obstacles opposing him.
“It’s why I love doing what I do,” he told SEN of the injury woes this season. “It’s just another challenge. Any manager or coach will tell you there’s always challenges, it’s why we’re here. The beauty of it is that along the way we haven’t made any excuses or allowances for ourselves.”
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Reo Hatate (L) delivered a stunning performance in just his fourth Celtic appearance.
Reo Hatate (L) delivered a stunning performance in just his fourth Celtic appearance.Source: Getty Images
At a historic heavyweight like Celtic, success is an expectation, a constant demand. But Postecoglou already delivered the season’s first silverware by lifting the League Cup in December – and he has never looked for excuses when things didn’t go so well.
“I knew that we had to sort of rebuild a team from scratch at the start of the year. I knew I couldn’t take two or three years to do it, I had to have success this year.
“We’ve won the cup. I’ve just made sure that along the way we haven’t made any excuses. If we’ve had players missing, we’re still expecting to perform.”
Today, Socceroos star Tom Rogic was absent after featuring for Australia twice in a week. Kyogo Furuhashi – the club’s breakout star this season and top scorer – was one of many injured players left to watch from the stands.
In his absence, it was another Japanese star who took the game by the scruff of the neck. Reo Hatate, one of three players from that country signed on New Year’s Eve, scored two goals and added an assist in a sublime first half performance. It was just his fourth match since joining the club.
Postecoglou had seen Hatate’s dazzling brilliance first-hand in Japan when the Australian managed Yokohama F. Marinos to a stunning league title. Hatate played a crucial role in 2020 as heavyweights Kawasake Frontale wrestled back the title from Marinos the following year – and he played just about everywhere. From a surging fullback to a proper winger to an attacking midfielder, Hatate was a Swiss Army knife. And in Postecoglou’s capable hands, Hatate cut apart Rangers with surgical precision.
If his man-of-the-match performance wasn’t enough to leave rivals shaken, Postecoglou delivered an ominous warning about the Japanese 24-year-old: “The whole side was outstanding, but it was good for Reo Hatate to get a couple of goals. We know he’s got quality. He’ll get better, it’s only his third game and you can see he’s nowhere near the levels of fitness required, but we’ll build him up.”
Only Postecoglou, with his three and a half years in the highly-technical Japanese league, could have pulled off an incredible signing spree of three players from that nation in one day.
Add pre-season signing Furuhashi to that list and the £10 million combined transfer spend is a ‘a robbery of a scale it’s impossible to describe,’ one Japanese football expert wrote.
Postecoglou’s arrival at Celtic last year came as a rude shock to fans and pundits. An Australian with a Greek surname, plucked from a Japanese club. But the negative comments and public derision never bothered him – and now he has proven the doubters wrong, just as he did in the A-League with his dominant Brisbane Roar side, and as the first Socceroos coach to claim the Asian Cup.
“I wasn’t (bothered) because it’s part of my history anyway,” he told SEN. “Everyone knows I’m Australian. Everywhere I’ve gone, there’s always a bit a question mark against me and what I do. I’ve had a lot of success.”
“I think when I came here, people were kind of not really aware of just how much knowledge we have about football over here,” he added.
On the evidence of today’s statement victory – and the way in which fans lapped up ever nod or wave Postecoglou sent their way – he has well and truly been taken into the hearts of the Celtic faithful.
“I’ve said it from day one, my biggest mission was to get everyone to believe in me. Whatever ideas I had, whatever way I wanted it to work or do things would be meaningless unless people believed in me. They’ve been fantastic from day one to be fair – even though they probably had to Google me to find out who I am.”
That blunt humour combined with a refusal to shirk responsibility for failures has gone a long way with the fans – so used to managers talking in doublespeak or pandering to the media.
His verbal quips spread through social media like wildfire after every interview, and are in no short supply. Like this jovial remark today about the Celtic fans: “Our job is to try and sort of send them home happy, to give them something to bounce into work tomorrow (feeling happy). I don’t know how many will get there!”
Or there was the time a journalist asked if the team should play a more pragmatic style to churn out results, instead of the scintillating but risky attacking tactics Postecoglou churns to.
He hit back: “My view on that is, if you are a strict vegetarian, you don’t drop into Macca’s just because you are hungry mate, you know? This is what I believe in!”
Now he has half of Glasgow believing too – but he’s not done yet.
“We’re not happy with where we are, we want to get better. We lost three of our first six, and couldn’t afford to not get out of that pretty quickly and almost be perfect, so we’ve been under pressure,” he told Sky Sports.
Postecoglou echoed that to SEN, saying: “We lost three of the first six games. We had to be almost perfect since then and we have been. The players knew we had to perform every week and overcome the challenges in front of us.”
Perfection is hard to come by in football, though a 3-0 win to snatch the league lead from your greatest rivals comes close. “Our football was pretty special,” a beaming Postecoglou declared. Celtic will still need to be almost perfect if they are to win the league – and they’ll need to face Rangers twice more.
But, as the fans chanted in one voice at Celtic Park, “We shall not be moved.”
Postecoglou has never wavered in his convictions, nor faltered when facing great obstacles. On the evidence of today, it’s hard to see Celtic failing now.
Why Ange Postecoglou won’t re-visit Dermot Desmond 500-miles meeting that should be music to Celtic fans ears
Ange Postecoglou has hit the right note with the Celtic supporters, just as he did during a meeting with Dermot Desmond last summer.
By David Oliver
Saturday, 9th April 2022, 7:30 am
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/why-ange-postecoglou-wont-re-visit-dermot-desmond-500-miles-meeting-that-should-be-music-to-celtic-fans-ears-3647573HAVE YOUR SAY
In an interview released on Friday morning, Celtic’s major shareholder revealed the Australian had quoted lyrics to The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles song to express his desire to take the manager’s job at Parkhead – but Postecoglou insists he didn’t sing it.
Instead it is the supporters now singing his name after he won them over with his brand of football which has taken the club six points clear at the top of the cinch Premiership with six games to go, including Saturday afternoon’s match with St Johnstone.
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“I don’t know what I was thinking! There’s the Scottish connection there and you try to get a connection with people. I did say it though… I never sang it!” Postecoglou admitted.
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou quoted the Proclaimers when he met Dermot Desmond, but won’t be meeting up again as he’s comfortable to ‘just get on’ with the job. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou quoted the Proclaimers when he met Dermot Desmond, but won’t be meeting up again as he’s comfortable to ‘just get on’ with the job. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)
“When the opportunity came to speak to Dermot, Peter Lawwell set it up, I had a great chat. Not so much about football, he’d done his research, it was more about me as a person, who I was and my values. We had a great conversation. He has been really supportive of me.”
Though on the same 12-month rolling contract since last June, the relative success so far won’t prompt any further meetings any-time soon. Postecoglou insists there is no reason to, which will be music to the ears of the fan-base won over by his “rebuild” phase one.
“The last thing I want to do is talk to chairmen or Dermot or anyone about my position,” he went on. “As managers we just get on with it. Usually when you have to talk to people involved it’s because you’re worried.
“I’m quite comfortable with the way things are going, I’m really happy and enjoying the role. I still have a helluva lot to accomplish as we are at the first stage of the rebuild.
“Until they tap me on the shoulder and tell me the road is going elsewhere then I will keep doing what I’m doing and be happy about it.”
With the Premier Sports Cup already banked, their six-point advantage plotting a course to the league title, and a Scottish Cup semi-final date with Rangers next weekend, a potential treble is edging onto the horizon and the mood is buoyant. A three-trophy haul in his first season would match the feats of both Martin O’Neill and Brendan Rodgers, and Postecoglou already mirrors the early popularity of both in the east of Glasgow.
“Good company in any situation,” is how he describes the notion. “Great people, both of them. From my perspective what’s important is we have to beat St Johnstone. If we don’t do that I will be having company with other people not mentioned, so I don’t think too far ahead.”
That means no thoughts on how second-placed Rangers fare at St Mirren tomorrow either. Postecoglou famously said he’d be watching a cartoon instead of his rivals’ previous Sunday away fixture – Sing2, appropriately enough – and the idea still stands.
“What other teams do in the competition is irrelevant. If we were chasing a team then I would be looking at other results. But we’re not and we don’t have to look at anyone, if we keep winning we will be in a good spot.”
Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou shuts down Rangers question with 1967 European Cup reference
Ange Postecoglou shut down any suggestion that Rangers had shown the way for Scottish clubs in Europe this season by referencing Celtic’s 1967 European Cup triumph.
By Matthew Elder
Friday, 29th April 2022, 4:26 pm
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/celtic-boss-ange-postecoglou-shuts-down-rangers-question-with-1967-european-cup-reference-3675526
Rangers will take on Celtic on Sunday just three days after a 1-0 defeat to RB Leipzig in the Europa League semi-final first leg in Germany, a deficit they will look to overturn in next Thursday’s second leg at Ibrox as they bid to reach the final in Seville.
Celtic exited three European tournaments this season after being knocked out of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, but Hoops manager Postecoglou dismissed suggestions that Rangers had blazed a trail for Scottish football.
When asked whether Rangers’ run demonstrated how Scottish clubs can make their mark and whether it gave him a taste for next season, Postecoglou said: “Scottish clubs, including this one, have made their mark in Europe before, I don’t think we have learned anything new this year.
“Rangers have done very well and Giovanni has done a great job in getting them to the semi-finals. I guess from their perspective they are still in the tie and have an opportunity to get to a final, which is great.
“But if you want evidence of how well Scottish clubs can do in Europe, there’s a trophy I can show you just down the road here, mate.”
Ange Postecoglou breaks silence on Celtic future in wake of Leeds speculation and ‘source’ claims
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has given his strongest indication yet he is committed to the club for the foreseeable future.
Andrew Smith
By Andrew Smith
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/ange-postecoglou-breaks-silence-on-celtic-future-in-wake-of-leeds-speculation-and-source-claims-4043645
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou lifts the Viaplay Cup trophy after a 2-1 win over Rangers.
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou lifts the Viaplay Cup trophy after a 2-1 win over Rangers.
Following recent links with Leeds United, and a source in Australia claiming he would move on at the end of the current campaign after two years in Scotland, the 57-year-old chose to open up on the subject at length for the first time in the wake of his team’s Viaplay Cup success over Rangers on Sunday. He did so to acknowledge “of course” he ponders that what he has with in Glasgow would not be easily replicable elsewhere, while providing himself wriggle room in admitting that he feels it is important to be abreast of other potential moves.
“You think about it all,” said Postecoglou. “When people say ‘he’s going to go down the road or somewhere else with the first offer he gets’ it’s not how I’m wired, it’s not how I think. For me, what it’s about is just trying to leave a mark wherever I am. I have done that with every football club I have been at. I want to do that at this football club and that is all that consumes me. I don’t think about the next step … or I need to go somewhere else … or I need to do this … or I need to consider other things. It is all there.
“You don’t go through life oblivious to it. It is not healthy to put the blinkers up and not know what is going on because that tests your desire to keep doing what you’re doing. If people are talking about my future or are interested in my future I will sit there and listen. It doesn’t mean I am going to jump at anything that comes my way. I am really passionate about what I do and the people close to me know what is most important to me, what drives me and what keeps me sort of happy in my role. I couldn’t be happier.”
Asked if would require a big job to entice him away from Celtic, Postecologou chose to reframe the question, setting out that any longevity depended on continuing to be wanted. “I totally understand what you mean,” he said. “I am hoping that over the course of time, as long as I’m here – and I am still here even though people have been getting me out there door, and I think you will be surprised how long I am here – all that I do when I am here is just be consumed by what I do and try to make this football club the best it can be and enjoy every minute of it.
“Mate, the world of management, I am too old to be kidded on by anybody. Things change very quickly. How many managers last three years in their roles these days? You have either got to have extraordinary success or in rare circumstances a club sticks by you. Apart from that, everyone doesn’t last that long. I am going into my third year next year and I am going to keep doing what I am doing and not really worry about what other people see. Because I’ll tell you what the first thing that will be said – and one of you [in the media] will be the first ones to do it – is I am not ambitious enough because I am not moving on.”
Ange Postecoglou’s South Melbourne roots underpin his growing success at Celtic
Joey Lynch
Wed 1 Mar 2023 02.04 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/01/ange-postecoglous-south-melbourne-roots-underpin-his-growing-success-at-celtic
The Australian manager has shown that he understands a club with a history and culture that reaches into politics, religion and identity
Joey Lynch
Wed 1 Mar 2023 02.04 GMT
Last modified on Wed 1 Mar 2023 13.08 GMT
There were no guarantees when Ange Postecoglou was named as the 21st permanent manager of Celtic in June 2021, and precious little indication that 20 months later he would be lifting his third trophy, with his side nine points clear atop the Scottish Premiership and on the way to consecutive league crowns.
Back then the former Socceroos coach’s resume placed him amongst Asia’s best, with credentials that gave a strong sign he knew his way around a football field, even if he was an outsider who had never coached in Europe. Postecoglou also possessed an unwavering sense of internal belief that his vision and principles would help him succeed in the role.
Yet the on-field component of life at Parkhead is just one facet of the Celtic job. Given an assumed quality of any incumbent manager and the level of resourcing available to them, squad selection and tactics could be among the role’s more straightforward tasks. Success still has to be earned, but there’s a reason the last coach to win the league outside the Old Firm was Sir Alex Ferguson.
As at many other big clubs, life at Celtic runs deeper than simply winning matches – there is a level of expectation, both spoken and implicit, not just for results on the pitch, but also conduct, ethos and attitude. Succeed like Postecoglou has on those levels, and the love and respect will follow. But it can become a foul-mouthed meat grinder if the fortitude and character to adapt is missing.
Postecoglou has never before coached in an environment quite like the one he entered in Glasgow: a split city where football is oxygen, and where a baying press pack waits to document every misstep alongside the success. Celtic has long since progressed beyond being a simple football club for many within the city and beyond. It’s a club with a history and culture that reaches into politics, religion and identity. To millions, it’s just as much a part of their family as any other relation.
It is this – and understanding and engaging with it – where Postecoglou has perhaps achieved most in Glasgow.
“As much as I am the manager of this football club and I am really passionate about it, I am not invested in the same way our supporters are,” Postecoglou said before the Scottish League Cup final win over Rangers. “I can’t be, because they have got generations. It would be insulting for me to say it means the same to me as them, but I bear the burden of that responsibility.”
Postecoglou doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up supporting Celtic. He shares their passion and deep appreciation for football, but he has no childhood memories of whole days spent revolving around standing on the terraces alongside his family. The same obsession did not exist around him in Australia. He knows he doesn’t have it and Celtic supporters know he doesn’t. So neither try to pretend he does.
But importantly – and this is obvious even from the other side of the world – the coach possesses sincere respect for those that do. He has some experience of living those emotions with his own first sporting love, South Melbourne, back in Australia almost 50 years ago. Hellas wasn’t just a club with which he won national titles as a captain and a coach, but it also provided him and his family, newly arrived Greek migrants searching for community and connection in a new home, with a place they belonged from the moment he walked in as a nine-year-old. It was home. It allows him to hold a bona fide empathy at Celtic.
After Sunday’s final he spoke of leading the club as a task that “consumes” him, and why that is a challenge he is not about to throw away at the first hint of interest from a free-falling Premier League side. For those watching along in his homeland who have long known of Postecoglou’s quality, these Premier League links represent a more poignant ‘I told you so’ to those who initially voiced their doubts than anything they could hope to come up with themselves. It’s not just Australians saying it now. Suddenly, everyone seems to want a piece of Ange. Much to Celtic fans’ chagrin.
Reactions to his achievements in Australia these days are beginning to move beyond searching archived comment sections and punditry heaping scorn on his appointment. Now it’s more something Buddhists would recognise as muditā: finding joy in the happiness and success of others.
Ange Postecoglou finds Celtic fans’ passion for football ‘easy to relate to’
https://www.the42.ie/celtic-ange-postecoglou-6003177-Feb2023/
Parkhead boss is eyeing another trophy when his side face Rangers in Sunday’s Viaplay Cup final.
ANGE POSTECOGLOU FEELS his passion for football has found the perfect home in Glasgow.
The former Australia head coach admits his love for Celtic cannot match the supporters who will follow their team to Hampden for Sunday’s Viaplay Cup final against Rangers.
But he can empathise with their feelings because of his shared obsession with his sport.
Postecoglou told Viaplay: “Whilst my passion for this football club can’t match the passion and investment of our supporters, I have been very invested in this sport.
“It’s been my one obsession my whole life, football. I have loved it.
“It’s given me everything good that’s in my life, from relationships to the life I have led, everything has been borne from the fact that I have had this obsession with and passion for the game.
“I understand what it is to love something that much and I know that that’s how our supporters feel about this football club. So it was easy for me to relate to.
“In many senses I was craving that because a lot of my early journey, particularly in Australia, it was the one thing that was missing.
“I had a lot of success but I wasn’t sharing that with like-minded folk. There wasn’t the same level of passion for the game that I had.
“So coming here, for me, it just felt right.”
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Postecoglou admits he cannot pretend Sunday’s game against Celtic’s city rivals is just like any other and will focus on trying to make sure his players are mentally focused for kick-off.
“As much as I am the manager of this football club and I am really passionate about it, I am not invested in the same way our supporters are. I can’t be, because they have got generations,” the 57-year-old added.
“It would be insulting for me to say it means the same to me as them, but I bear the burden of that responsibility.
“I know what it means to our people that in these big games we are successful. And the players understand that, they embrace that responsibility too.
“I think that goes for both clubs. When there is so much at stake in terms of the potential repercussions of a result either way, I think that’s brought into the game.”
Ange Postecoglou: The boy from Greece who became Celtic’s main man
By Tom EnglishBBC Scotland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65509996
Last updated on
2 hours ago2 hours ago.From the section Celtic
Sports Insight BannerAnge Postecoglou as a five-year-old
Ange Postecoglou left Greece aged five to move to Australia
It could be argued that the most arresting picture of Ange Postecoglou is not anything taken at the side of a football field with Celtic, not a shot of him celebrating his first or his second Scottish Premiership title, or his first or his second Scottish League Cup title.
Nothing, really, from his successful days at Yokohama Marinos or Brisbane Roar or the Socceroos or South Melbourne Hellas can hold a candle to the photograph taken of him as a five-year-old holding a card with the number 24 on it.
That was his immigration number when his parents took him out of the military junta regime of Athens, Greece to a safer but uncertain haven of Melbourne in Australia. That’s where it all started. That’s why the photograph has a poignancy.
The little boy is looking down the camera lens with the same kind of stare that many years later, as Australia coach, would regularly burn a hole in the back of the head of his players in training, said former Socceroo Tim Cahill.
His friend, Paul Trimboli, said Postecoglou doesn’t say a lot, he doesn’t make things comfortable for people, and for a lot of folk “that can be unnerving”.
Even at five, you can see some of that in the picture. A steely look. Since Celtic fans came across it, they’ve knocked a lot of fun out of what the 24 signifies.
“The wee man is telling us how many in a row he’s going to win.”
“He’s saying how many Rangers managers he’s going to see off.”
This was Angelos Postecoglou. Five years later his parents legally changed his name to Angelos Postekos, but he never cared for Postekos.
“It was a fad in those days to shorten your name if you were Greek,” he said years ago. “I never liked it and I never used it. I was proud of my background, but when it came to my first passport and my first driver’s licence, there was nothing I could do about it.”
Short presentational grey line
On Sunday, Postecoglou won his second straight Premiership title with Celtic and a fourth domestic trophy from a possible five since his move to Scotland from Japan in the summer of 2021.
Barring the football miracle to end all football miracles, he will win a fifth from six when Celtic play Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup final next month.
A Celtic manager winning lots of titles is nothing new, but there is something different about this.
Postecoglou didn’t inherit a champion team in need of minor tweaks as, say, Brendan Rodgers had done before him. The season before Postecoglou took over, the club lost their bid for 10 league titles in a row by a whopping 25 points and the mood music at Celtic was dismal.
Rangers had knocked them out of the Scottish Cup, Ross County had eliminated them from the League Cup, there were furious protests and banners calling for heads to roll. The atmosphere was toxic. Legions of fans spoke of their disillusionment. They felt they were being taken for granted and ignored.
Celtic set ‘ridiculous standard’ – Postecoglou
Postecoglou’s Celtic claim Premiership crown
Manager Neil Lennon was sacked. Peter Lawwell, the long-standing chief executive, signalled his intention to resign. He was replaced by Dominic McKay, who lasted two months and then left for reasons unexplained.
For the longest time, the club wooed Eddie Howe. They waited and waited for him to agree to become their next manager but months down the track, he said no. Cue more supporter thunder.
More than 100 days had passed and still Celtic had no manager. The fans were in thermonuclear mode. A total overhaul of a tired squad was required – and quickly. Celtic needed a brand new team.
Enter Postecoglou with his calm focus and his unerring eye for a player. And very quickly, things started to make sense.
Short presentational grey line
Over the last year or so, nine Premier League clubs have been ‘linked’ with an interest in Postecoglou. How much of that was genuine and how much was smoke is unclear, but the Australian is being talked about.
More and more people are looking at what he’s done – the excellent signings, the attacking style, the relentless nature of his team and his coolness in the maelstrom of Glasgow football – but the really interesting stuff, the soul of the guy, can be found in his back story.
He could win any number of trebles with Celtic but nothing will match the tale of how he got to the club in the first place.
“I just can’t believe what my parents went through,” he once said. “What they would have gone through to take a young family halfway round the world, on a ship that takes us 30 days, to a country where they don’t speak the language, they don’t know a soul, they don’t have a house, they don’t have jobs.
“People say they go to another country for a better life. My parents did not have a better life, they went to Australia to provide opportunities for me to have a better life.”
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His sister, Liz, is five years older and recalls the early months in Melbourne. “They arrived here with just suitcases, having to care for two little children,” she recalled in the documentary Age of Ange. “It was difficult for her [Voula, her mother]. I remember many nights hearing her crying.”
Postecoglou’s father – Dimitris, known as Jim – was a hard worker. Up early, home late, no nonsense. Football was his escape and his salvation.
On Sundays, he brought his son to South Melbourne Hellas, a club set up for Greek immigrants. There was church in the morning and football in the afternoon. That was the rhythm of life.
“As a kid, I just wanted to fit in, I didn’t necessarily like the fact I came from another country and had a really long surname that nobody could get their mouth around. For a young boy the best way to fit in was sport,” Postecoglou recalled.
Football wasn’t just a game to play, it was his one opportunity to bond with his father, his hero, as he’s described him.
In that documentary he’s seen thumbing through his old comics and books. “It’s why I keep them. It reminds me what my childhood was like. There was a lot of living in a fantasy football world that didn’t exist here in Australia.”
Short presentational grey line
There’s footage from his football days where he’s called Angelos, Angie and then Ange.
He retired at 27 through injury. He won the Australian national championship (the great Ferenc Puskas was his manager) but always knew in his bones that coaching was where his future lay.
There was a dread, though. And it goes back to his father again. What if he didn’t make it as a coach? What if he failed? That was his conduit to his father. “What would that mean to dad and I? How would we fill the void?”
He needn’t have stressed. He won two national championships as manager of South Melbourne when everybody said he couldn’t.
Jim rarely said it to his face – an old-school man reluctant to show much emotion – but he told his mates how proud his boy made him. Word got back. It was enough.
He coached at national under-age level but it was almost the end of him. He got sacked, had to go to the Greek third tier to find work, and then came back to Australia, to nothing. Those were scary times.
Ange Postecoglou with wife Georgia and his two sons
Ange Postecoglou celebrates last season’s title success with wife Georgia and his two sons
With his wife, Georgia, he moved in with his mother-in-law for six to eight months to get by. You look at him celebrating now with his wife and sons and you know that he went through the mill to get to where he is today.
Brisbane Roar took him on in 2009 and he created what some seasoned observers say is the best club side in the history of the Australian game. Fast and furious, never-stop football. That philosophy didn’t start in Glasgow in 2021.
He won the league in 2011 and 2012, went to Melbourne Victory and then to the Socceroos, saw his team compete at the World Cup in 2014, won the Asian Cup in 2015, rebuilt the side and got them to another World Cup in 2018.
Japan beckoned. Not only did he win the J-League with Yokohama Marinos, he also soaked up all the knowledge in the world about a market that would prove spectacularly helpful in his next job – Celtic.
He has passed away now, but Jim Postecoglou is and will always be the key to his son.
“The root and foundation of who I am is no longer by my side,” the Celtic boss wrote in the Athletes Voice. “Where is the purpose now? His voice is in my head. The flame he lit is still there. I need to keep honouring his sacrifices.”
As interesting as it is to hear his thoughts every week about players and games, Postecoglou is never more compelling than when talking about the things that shaped him.
‘I couldn’t be prouder’ – Postecoglou
“I understand what an honest day’s work is about,” he said, not long after he became Celtic manager.
“I understand what sacrifice is about, I understand what being in a privileged position like I am now is about.
“I am not going to take this for granted because I know how hard my mum and dad worked. They sacrificed their whole life for me to be here.
“I don’t feel like I am working every day, I feel like I am living a dream that was founded by other people’s sacrifice, particularly my parents.”
That is deep and it is powerful and Postecoglou’s work has taken him to a double last season, probably a treble this season and who knows what else in whatever time he has left in Glasgow. His story continues.
Celtic Football Club statement
“Celtic is a phenomenal football club, and so much more – I will forever be a supporter,” Ange Postecoglou
By Editor 6 June, 2023 No Comments
Tottenham Hotspur officially announced the news mid-morning that Ange Postecoglou has been appointed as their new manager, with the former Celtic manager signing a four year deal at the Premier League club.
Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman looks on during the Premier League match between Norwich City and Tottenham Hotspur at Carrow Road on May 22, 2022 (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Chairman said: Ange brings a positive mentality and a fast, attacking style of play. He has a strong track record o developing players and an understanding of the importance of the link from the academy – everything that is important to our club.”
There are thousands of comments to the official announcement on the Tottenham twitter account, with Celtic supporters still backing Ange but the Tottenham fans mostly raging about the appointment.
That’s just the sort of challenge that Ange Postecoglou loves as we have already covered today on The Celtic Star.
Meanwhile here’s Ange Postecoglou’s comments from the official statement Celtic released today which also confirmed that the Australian had left the club to sign a contract to be the new manager at Tottenham.
“I would like to sincerely thank everyone at the Club for everything they have given me. In particular, Dermot, Peter and Michael and the Celtic Board have shown me tremendous support in every aspect of my time at Celtic and I will forever be grateful for this.
“They brought me to the Club and I have worked so closely and so well with them for the past two years, I will always have a special relationship with them.
“They wanted me to extend my time at Celtic and while I am so respectful and understanding of their position, a new opportunity has been presented to me and it is one which I wanted to explore.
“It was an honour to be asked to be Celtic manager and during my two years I have given everything I have to deliver success to our supporters. Culminating in the Treble at the weekend, my players and backroom team have been brilliant for me on this journey.
“They have given us all some fantastic moments through their energy and effort, creating real quality, winning football.
“Our supporters have been magnificent to me and I thank them for the way they have embraced me during the past two years. My ambition was always to give our fans a team they could be proud of, a team people talked about and I think we have achieved that.
“Celtic is a phenomenal football club, and so much more – and I will forever be a supporter of this great institution. I wish everyone connected with Celtic nothing but continued success.”