A lot has happened for Ange Postecoglou since he coached the first A-League All Stars v Manchester United in 2013, writes Tom Smithies.
It all began in a hotel conference room on a sunny autumn afternoon in April 2013 – the day the All Stars helped to create an all-star.
Ange Postecoglou walked into the room, having just been anointed to coach the first A-League All Stars side against Manchester United, beating Tony Popovic by a margin of fewer than 100 votes in a poll of some 15,000 fans.
Nine years later Postecoglou is the manager of Celtic, has won the Asian Cup with the Socceroos and the J-League with Yokahama F Marinos, and coached at a World Cup. The man he coached against in that inaugural All Stars game, David Moyes, had in 2013 just been appointed manager of Manchester United with the daunting task of replacing Sir Alex Ferguson. He lasted 10 months.
As Barcelona prepare to face an All Stars team in May in Sydney, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Postecoglou’s narrow victory in that fan poll nine years ago changed lives. As FFA CEO at the time, David Gallop introduced Postecoglou as coach of the All Stars and watched him embrace the concept, the marketing and the media that came with it over the following three months.
Though United won the actual game easily enough in the end, it also struck Gallop how Postecoglou was able to unite a disparate group of players into a harmonious whole in a matter of days – what is practically the job description of a national team head coach.
At the time Holger Osieck had just qualified for the World Cup as Socceroos boss, and while his coaching was less than convincing, there was little chat about a potential change of head coach.
But four days after the All Stars game, Melbourne Victory – as a side Postecoglou had coached for a season – took on Liverpool and went head to head with the English side, in front of a sell-out MCG crowd. It all gilded further a CV with four national league titles on it as head coach.
Meanwhile Osieck had taken an A-League based Socceroos squad to the East Asia Cup and watched his team come last after two losses and a draw, conceding seven goals in the process.
Infamously the full-strength Socceroos squad then got hammered 6-0 twice in succession by Brazil and France in September and October. Osieck was fired by Gallop in a hotel bar in Paris at midnight, and there was realistically only one candidate to replace him once Gallop had convinced Frank Lowy to pursue an Australian coach.
“Prime ministerial” was how one senior FFA staff member described Postecoglou’s demeanour around the All Stars, and within months he had been appointed to a role with similar levels of public scrutiny and expectation.
Eight and half years later he has more of that at Celtic, and wouldn’t have it any other way. Whoever coaches the 2022 All Stars should be aware of how history can be made.
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