Brisbane Roar coach Ange Postecoglou has been the subject of much praise over the past year-and-a-half But there is another manager who is achieving great success with his club without the same level of acclaim.
Ange Postecoglou has been the subject of much praise over the past year-and-a-half, and rightly so.
His Brisbane Roar side are the reigning Hyundai A-League premiers and champions and they only had their incredible 36-match unbeaten streak ended by Sydney FC on Sunday.
Postecoglou has implemented a footballing philosophy at the club that sees Brisbane entertain and most importantly for his sake, be successful.
But there is another manager in Australia who is achieving great success with his club without the same level of acclaim.
And if Brisbane lose to the Melbourne Heart at Suncorp Stadium on Friday, his win/loss ratio in the A-League would actually be higher than Postecoglou’s.
His name is of course, Graham Arnold, and his Central Coast Mariners side are once again enjoying a successful campaign.
Arnold’s first season in charge of the Mariners saw his team win exactly half of the matches they played in.
A total of 17 wins, 11 draws and six losses were the result of a season in which Central Coast fell just short of claiming the ultimate prize.
With just four minutes to go in the 2010-11 decider, Arnold’s men led Postecoglou’s Brisbane 2-0.
The rest, as they say, is history, as late strikes from Henrique and Erik Paartalu forced penalties and Brisbane went on to win.
The Roar’s superb fightback was rightly the focus of much media attention but the Mariners’ super season did seem to slip under the radar.
A lengthy off-season that lasted almost seven months would have been tough for the Central Coast squad, with their heartbreaking defeat surely on their minds.
Arnold has used that disappointment as motivation for his squad though, and a 4-0 rout of Adelaide United on Friday was his side’s fifth win in nine matches this term.
In Arnold’s 43 matches in charge of Central Coast, they have won 22 and lost eight giving him a win/loss ratio of 2.75.
Postecoglou’s tenure at Brisbane has seen his troops win 30 of 58 matches, losing 10 for a win/loss ratio of 3.00.
But this weekend’s results could swing the statistics in Arnold’s favour, which is some achievement for a man who was widely criticised after his stint as caretaker Qantas Socceroos coach and then when the U23s picked up just one point under his management at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Arnold has bounced back though and his Mariners team have won plenty of admirers for their football.
It is about time Arnold won some too.
