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.
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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.”
View image in fullscreenPostecoglou at the final whistle at Hampden Park. Photograph: Mark Runnacles/Getty Images
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.
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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.
