I have been disillusioned and weighing up my coaching future since I was sacked two years ago today (January 6). Visiting Ange Postecoglou at Celtic last month provided me with clarity – it has reinvigorated my passion for coaching, writes A-Leagues Championship winning coach Ernie Merrick.
Ange and I go back a long way. While we were both born abroad, Melbourne was where we played and coached and we both got our first opportunities in the NSL.
My senior coaching career (Preston Lions, Sunshine George Cross) began while Ange was still a marauding full-back for South Melbourne. I was at the Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) when he made his coaching debut, and a few years later I was his Young Socceroos and Joeys (Under 17s) assistant coach, when we qualified for a FIFA World Youth Cup.
Twenty years on, it was surreal being in the country I was born and bred, watching Ange set a new standard for Scottish football, and do it in style.
Watching his progress at Celtic gives me a sense of pride. The critics were lining up for Ange, as there is still a mindset we’re still a footballing backwater in Australia. Ange hasn’t changed Scottish football per se, but he has set a new standard.
Steven Gerrard did a great job at Rangers and Steve Clark has done a sterling job with the Scotland national team. But I went to watch my team Ayr United play and it was effort, high intensity running, closing down and some horrendous tackles.
But all of a sudden, there’s a team in Scotland playing fantastic passing football, coming out from the back, playing through the lines, and I thought, it’s amazing that an Australian involved.
The purpose of going back to Scotland is to, first and foremost visit my 93-year-old mother, sister and family. The bonus was popping into Celtic’s training session at Lennoxtown Training Centre upon an invitation from Ange.
Hidden away in the hills an hour north of Glasgow, you need to be a member of the CIA to find Lennoxtown. But it’s a tremendous facility.
I wasn’t here in a particularly beautiful day, it was pretty wet and cold. I’d forgotten how bad the weather was in Scotland. It was more like the beginning of winter.
The session involved 22 players. It was great to watch the quality and technique was very high. Impressive as they are in matches, Kyogo Furuhashi and Jota looked superb.
That’s another clever part of Ange’s coaching that he is very good at: picking quality players, especially up front when you use it. He did the same when he was at Brisbane Roar.
As a coach you can tell the quality of players you have with how hard they work at training. The Celtic squad was working really hard, with Ange overseeing the session and his assistants John Kennedy and Stephen McManus heavily involved.
It was a sharp, intense session with two games coming up – a Europa League match in Germany two days later against Bayer Leverkusen, then it was Aberdeen at Celtic Park three days later.
It was just really impressive to watch and it was all about scoring goals at the session – little goals, big goals.
It was thought-provoking for me, and made me reflect deeply. I’ve always played an attacking type of football, always liked to score goals and when your players really identify with it and connect, it creates special moments that the fans relish.
I had the best seat in the house at that session, as Ange could not have been more obliging. I asked: ‘where do you want me to stand?’ He said: ‘come close, feel free to come and have a good look, don’t worry about anything’. It was very nice.
Watching the intensity, the coaches being in complete control, the players being so driven, it looks to me as if this team will win more trophies this season. If he stays on, I’m sure at some stage he’s going to get an offer from the English Premier League.
My reflections have made me realise how disillusioned I was with my last club, and how unlucky I believe I was. Newcastle Jets hadn’t made the finals for eight seasons before I arrived in 2017-18. We finished second and lost the grand final to a VAR decision.
A year on, seven of the starting XI left and I got sacked. At that point I thought: why am I doing this?
I’m proud of my A-League record. The seasons that best reflect what I’m about are 2006-07 with Melbourne Victory (championship-winning season with 41 goals in 21 games and six grand final goals); 2014-15 at Wellington Phoenix (finished equal third and scored 45 goals in 27 games) and the Jets in 2017-18 (57 goals in 27 games).
I still feel I have something to offer and certainly felt invigorated after watching Ange’s Celtic.
Clubs need to recognise that’s what the game is all about – attacking players having those special moments which get the fans to their feet.
In the meantime, I’ll enjoy working to assist the development of other coaches in my role with Football Coaches Australia.
