Ange Postecoglou

January 2nd

 

He had a very simple Beale on toast.

And wee bowl of jelly and ice cream for afters.

 

Ange won't be in any hurry to leave Parkhead paradise, says Aussie legend Schwarzer


GOALKEEPER turned broadcaster, the reverence shown by Australian media colleagues towards Mark Schwarzer is hard to miss.


At press conferences in Qatar’s National


Convention Centre, he lobs questions at the podium and the room falls quiet.


When Graham Arnold answers, he calls him ‘Schwarz’. One of Australian football’s Golden Generation of 2006, the iconic keeper has been there, seen it, done it and worn the jersey. When he opens his mouth, people listen.


‘Following the Socceroos around and covering press conferences is something that’s very new to me,’ he tells Sportsmail over a bottle of FIFA-licensed still water.


‘I’ve been in a press conference before, but never been actively involved on the journalistic side.

‘If I had a choice I wouldn’t be doing it very often. It’s okay but I prefer to do the whole sitdown interviews and try to find out people’s background stories a bit more.

‘One to one interviews, as opposed to this sort of stuff, is more my bag.’

A talent for grilling the great and the good of the game shone through in March of this year when the most-capped Australian international of all time packed a bag and flew to Glasgow.

As a player for over two decades with Middlesbrough, Fulham, Chelsea and Leicester, his day job was clutching cross balls.





These days he holds a microphone for a living and, when he left Celtic’s Lennoxtown training ground after an audience with Ange Postecoglou, he felt he’d spoken to a manager likely to be targeted by clubs in England’s Premier League. Targeted, if not tempted.

‘Yeah, definitely,’ nods Schwarzer. ‘Ange has had stepping stones now and I say that with the greatest respect to all concerned.

‘He went from managing in the A-League to managing the national team, got an opportunity to go to Japan. He did very well at Yokohama, winning their first title in a number of years and changing the whole ethos of the club.

‘What Ange has done everywhere he has gone, every job he has been at, is leave the club in a better place. So he is one of those people who lays the foundations, accomplishes a lot with a club. And if an opportunity comes up — and it all works for everyone — then who knows?

‘I actually think he is very happy where he is. When I spoke to him he had an unbelievable respect for Celtic and the opportunity they have given him to manage at the level they are at. So I don’t think he is actively looking to move on at all. I think he is more than happy.’

At the age of 43, Schwarzer ended his career after a spell with Leicester. Picking the right time to leave a football club is never an exact science and he thinks Brendan Rodgers picked a lousy time to walk out on Celtic. If or when temptation falls into the path of Postecoglou, he expects his countryman to sugar-coat the bitter pill a little better.

‘I think the anger with Rodgers was more about the timing and the way it was done,’ says Schwarzer. ‘That’s everything and it’s key. In saying that, do you always get to pick the right time? Sometimes it’s now or never. And if, down the line, there are opportunities? Well, then, you have to make tough decisions.

‘But everywhere Ange has left he has done it on good terms. He has always done it the right way. I can’t see it being any different when he goes from Celtic.’

Surprisingly, the two men never actually worked together. Schwarzer brought his Socceroos career to an end after 109 caps in 2013. He had played at two World Cups, reaching the second stage for the first time ever in 2006.

He had done the hard miles, throwing his body around the EPL for two decades and, at the age of 41, was struggling to get a game for Chelsea. When Postecoglou replaced Holger Osiek as Socceroos boss, he’d done his stint.

‘It all kind of aligned,’ he recalls. ‘The manager was sacked, it was very well known how Ange would want to play football.

‘I knew things would change and it wouldn’t necessarily suit how I played. It felt like the right decision to retire from the national team.’

Had he been a younger man, Schwarzer might have taken a different decision.

Nine months into his first season in Glasgow, Postecoglou threw open the gates of Lennoxtown to talk him through the methods which would deliver a first Scottish Premiership title inside two months.

Unconvinced by the merits of Angeball nine years ago, the Socceroos icon left Glasgow a convert to the cause.

‘I think what Ange has done at Celtic is remarkable,’ observes Schwarzer. ‘On day one people were lambasting him, calling his appointment comical and farcical.

‘But what I think is even more impressive — and, in my opinion, it’s not really appreciated — is that Ange went in there and didn’t bring a single coach with him.

‘He walked into a country and a club he barely knew and worked with the same people who were there the previous season when they were 25 points behind Rangers.




Let’s be honest, Celtic fans were desperate for him to get rid of the guys who were there before after the previous season.

‘What he told me was that (John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan) knew Glasgow and he could use them as much as they used him. So long as they wanted to go on his journey, so long as they were open to learning and change, he was more than happy to take them on the journey.’

Postecoglou’s ‘never-stop’ mantra has become a merchandiser’s dream. Nine points clear in the Scottish Premiership, Celtic’s relentlessness makes them favourites to retain their title despite the arrival of Michael Beale as manager of Rangers.

The bump in the road came in the Champions League. Watching from Down Under, Schwarzer always feared that would be the case. Harder to predict was how supporters would react.

‘Ange won’t change. He just won’t,’ notes Schwarzer. ‘That was always going to be the question for me. How would the Celtic fans react to that? The Champions League was always going to be a pivotal moment. Do people realise where they are in the grand scheme of things?

‘Celtic and Rangers are very unique, they are two global, massive clubs. And there is a sense of “We are Celtic, we are Rangers, we should be winning everything”.

‘With some fans, that attitude is very strong. So my litmus test for Ange was always to see if they got to the Champions League and continued to play like they’re playing, how will that affect perceptions? How will the fans react to it?

‘My general understanding is that most of the fans still love the way they play football. Yes, they have lost games. They lost to Real Madrid by a quite a lot of goals, but they can see what they are trying to do. Entertainment probably outweighs the actual results at the moment.’

 

I’ve still got my ‘sacked by Christmas banner’ ready to go.

Is it Christmas 2022 he’s away?

Starting to think it was a * waste of time if I’m honest.

 

Toad in the mole.

 

I keep repeating it but I honestly believe Ange could create history if we can get him staying here for a decent stint

 

For Ange it's steak and * day every day.

Funny as * reading the huns comments on Daily hun FB page. They are boiling over his comments on Beale's appointment.

 

We need to sign him to a new deal as soon as possible. That should have been the highest priority for the club after the summer transfer business was completed.

 

I think the tours are a must long term we have a worldwide Fanbase who can’t always get over to a game people who buy strips and subscribe to Celtic tv only right they get chance to see the team in the flesh


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According to who strachan ….. could it not be the fact he couldn’t be * being away from family at that time and didn’t want to away for 3 weeks ?

It does happen coaches puttting their own needs before the club …… their a coach further down in the youth system that’s binned six talented lads just because he didn’t like dealing with their parents


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Unfortunately finance is the only way to make the team and club better


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What’s the food like ?


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We haven't been able to do the tours because of CL qualifiers. And it was Rodgers thar hated them btw

 

For me in Melbourne getting the chance to see us in the flesh is amazing. You guys take it for granted (as did I when I lived back home btw). i don’t see a real downside to it as long we have auto qualification to the CL.
Good money, expands the brand, bloods young fringe players & shares the love with remote supporters.

 

Recycle it and head over to the bigot dome, you can hold it up there, Beale will be gone soon.

 

I loved it. Cheaper than London as well. You could get a big meaty noodle dish for £3.70 (I guess it's more now as that was 8 years ago) but Japan is basically the epitome of capitalism, you can get anything you want there western or Japanese. As I like Asian food, I ate a lot of noodle and rice dishes for about £4.50 - £5 a pop but it's all there even Indian curries. 7/11 was my place for coffee, 70p for a large white coffee and Lawson (7/11 type store) for my £4 bento boxes which were big filling and awesome. My (now ex) Japanese girly got me into onigiri's which is basically a block of rice with a meat or fish filling wrapped with a slice of seaweed..sounds bad but tasted very good and 2 of those bad boys at 70p each were very filling.

 

Cough. Cough, cough, cough. Cough. Cough cough.

 

Yeah it seems to be getting worse, I'm a wee bit worried about it to be honest

 

Ryan McGowan says he found a flight sitting beside former manager Ange Postecoglou so intimidating that it was "the worst 16 hours of my life".

St Johnstone midfielder McGowan missed out on the Australia squad for the current World Cup finals.

But he recalled his experience under the present Celtic boss.

"I am sitting there just sweating," McGowan told BBC Scotland. "I was so nervous. He didn't speak to me once. Not even like, 'how are you?'"

The 33-year-old recounted the flight from Sydney to Dubai on Sacked in the Morning with former Scotland managers Gordon Strachan and Craig Levein.




McGowan said he had not realised at the time that Postecoglou's behaviour masked what appears to have been a devilish sense of humour.

"He did a podcast a few months ago and he said, 'I used to love doing it; it used to freak all the boys out'," he revealed.

McGowan, whose 22 caps included three appearances at the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil, explained that sitting beside Postecoglou was payback for "messing around" his team-mates.

"I'd been up to a bit of mischief with some of the senior boys beforehand, which I now seriously regret," he said.

"I was at Hearts on my 100 quid a week and I used to put all my coffees on the senior boys' rooms because they could obviously afford it. But I didn't know they could pick the seats when we were flying from Sydney to Dubai.

"I got my ticket and it was 1A, business class up the front. I get on the flight, all set up and the next thing Ange comes and he's sitting right next to me."

McGowan was even too fearful to interrupt his manager's sleep to visit the toilet.

"I held it in the whole way," he admitted. "No way was I waking him up.

"Some of the boys were ordering wine. I was like 'just water, thank you'. When we got there, he just up and left."


Postecoglou's imposing style led Celtic to the Scottish title last season while they lead again this season, but what kind of manager is he?

"He's the best coach I've worked with," McGowan suggested.

"He is so distant and so scary, you are petrified of him - I still am. He'd have certain rules that were just non-negotiable.

"As an average player, I liked that. He just told you what to do and you tried to do it as best you could. He was very good at that.

"There are certain managers who are like, 'go and express yourself'. I can't express myself at all. Just tell me what to do and I'll try to do it!"