Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano tells aleagues.com.au how a pre-season trip to Japan ended up scoring the Isuzu UTE A-League side two prized recruits even he didn’t see coming.
As soon as Wellington Phoenix’s historic season came to an end, Giancarlo ‘Chiefy’ Italiano already had his eyes on the future.
After the Phoenix had fallen agonisingly short of a maiden Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final appearance in Italiano’s rookie campaign, it was not long before the Australian was on a plane to Japan.
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He spent time with FC Tokyo’s Aussie head coach Peter Cklamovski – Ange Postecoglou’s former right-hand man with Yokohama F.Marinos and the Subway Socceroos.
It was all part of building on an unforgettable season in Wellington; a chance to grow as a coach and network.
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“I’ve known Pete since I started my A License (in Australia). He was the second assistant with the Socceroos and he was fast-tracked with Ange Postecoglou for the Asian Cup. We met there,” Italiano told aleagues.com.au.
“He was really accommodating when I went there. It was a matchday minus two and he wanted me to come into the meetings. I got there a bit late because I got lost but I ended up going to training. He allowed me full access into the office. We sat down and went through some of the struggles he had. Watched training and went through the way he operates.
“He actually gave me some really good ideas in terms of moving forward and how I wanted to deal with staff because he runs it really well.
“He is a really good guy. There wasn’t a barrier. Sometimes, when coaches invite other coaches sometimes they protect their intellectual properties being the coach and that, but he was pretty open.”
FC Tokyo was not the only J1 League side Italiano visited; he also spent two days with high-flying Kashima Antlers, who currently sit fourth in the Japanese top flight.
Across those two stops, there was one big takeaway.
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“They (Kashima) have Milan (Miric), who is the assistant coach and Aussie, and Ranko Popovic, who is embedded in the J.League. He is a great coach and coached in Spain too,” Italiano recalled, having also spent time watching J2 and University football.
“They were really nice. I spent some time at Ranko’s house.
“It was funny. I went and watched the game against Thomas Deng’s Albirex Niigata. They drew 1-1 and I met with Ranko afterwards and was thinking, the worst time to meet with a coach is after a game.
“He came over, we enjoyed a bottle of wine and talked about football all night. I spent some time at the training ground. I learnt a lot.
“One of the big things I got out of it was the way they kind of structured (things), ideas-wise we’re very similar, but the way they do things is a little bit different.
“But it was good because it was like, ‘maybe I’m on the right track here’. Even Pete’s environment was different but still the same thinking or methodology behind everything we’re doing.
“That’s what I really wanted to get out of the trip – to see if I’m missing something in terms of the process, not so much the football content because that’s subjective.”
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However, Italiano got more than he bargained for abroad.
His trip laid the groundwork for two signings from the J.League – AFC Champions League winner Kazuki Nagawasa and Hideki Ishige from Gamba Osaka.
And there could be more to come.
“The trip (to Japan) was primarily centred around football education and learning, and improving my own environment,” he said.
“As a consequence of that, I was able to network with a lot of agents and clubs.
“Out of this whole exercise, without going into what clubs I interacted with, I was able to get four or five clubs to send me a list of loan players I would never have had at the beginning of last season. Just my network wasn’t big enough to do that. That’s opened up quite a number of doors.
“That’s how I was able to get Kazuki and Hideki. It was more about opening up those relationships and those people connected with the clubs knew of me. The whole process was great.
“I went initially for the football and the recruitment came on the flipside.”
Wellington have brought in Nagawasa on a two-year deal from J2 League side Vegalta Sendai.
The 32-year-old brings a wealth of experience to the Phoenix with over 300 professional matches and three major titles over the past decade.
Nagasawa won the 2017 AFC Champions League title with Japanese giants Urawa Red Diamonds and followed that up with the 2018 Emperor’s Cup before teaming up with Melbourne Victory-bound Australian star Mitch Langerak at Nagoya Grampus to hoist the 2021 J.League Cup aloft.
The one-time Japan international launched his career in Germany with FC Cologne, where he helped the club secure Bundesliga promotion in 2014.
The 29-year-old has played almost 300 professional matches in Japan – more than half of which have been in the J1 League via Gamba and Shimizu S-Pulse.
“Like all coaches and clubs who go through their own struggles with recruitment and what money is available, the one thing that I like to think we do quite well here is we’re quite thorough,” Italiano explained.
“When we’re recruiting players, it’s not like I pick a player and I want to sign them. I go through this whole process of watching them over and over again.
“The one thing that stood out with both of those players, when I watched them the first time, I had the same feeling as I did the 30th time I watched them.
“I felt really comfortable with the players they were, they had good grounding and versatility and more importantly they had footballing brains. (It) doesn’t matter how much money you spend, if they’re missing that, it’s very hard to coach.”
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Italiano added: “I reckon I watched Hideki maybe once a day for a month. I kept re-visiting him; Nagasawa was maybe a little less.
“The one thing I have to get settled in my head – I’m very big on team chemistry and balance. What I imagine, I like to think how is this player going to settle in with the other players. What dynamic are they going to give us? Their defence and attacking attributes, how they work off the ball and then getting a good character reference. All these things take time.
“Because we’re not flushed with cash, I wanted to make sure these players – worst-case scenario – can cover a number of positions because that helps us. The way I want to evolve and play, can they play all those positions? They ticked all the boxes. That’s why I take my time with signings.
“Sometimes I get a bit excited with players and then I watch them more than once, and then I fall out of love with them. It’s a normal part of the process and a healthy one.
“I’ve been doing this (exercise) for six years. The first year I did it with Uffie (former Phoenix head coach and current Sydney FC boss Ufuk Talay), we spent months and months building a new squad. We only had six players. I learnt a lot out of that.
“(I) helped him those four years and last year we went through the same process but we didn’t really bring in a foreigner last season, only the one mid-season.
“But this season, that’s been the exciting part going, ‘okay We’ve lost a chunk of players, now I’m going to bring in players a bit more aligned to the way I like to play’.
“Just watching the players over and over again, it gets you comfortable with what you’re looking for and reinforcement of the way you believe football should be played.”
The Phoenix have farewelled some significant personnel – Alex Paulsen (AFC Bournemouth), Ben Old (Saint-Etienne), Bozhidar Kraev (Western Sydney Wanderers) and Finn Surman (Portland Timbers), while Nicholas Pennington (Perth Glory), Oskar Zawada and Jack Duncan (Melbourne Victory) have also departed.
But it has allowed Italiano to bring in Marco Rojas, Paulo Retre, Luke Brooke-Smith, Josh Oluwayemi, Dublin Boon (scholarship contract), Nagasawa and Ishige.
While announcing the arrivals of Nagasawa and Ishige, Italiano highlighted the pair’s positional versatility. It signals somewhat of a new era for the Phoenix – the next stage of Wellington’s tactical evolution.
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“Tactical flexibility now is your advantage in most games. What I mean by that is, if I go into a game thinking I know how you play and you know how I play. There’s no variation in terms of how we change,” Italiano said.
“But the way we’re coaching now, there’s more of an emphasis – I use water as an analogy, like fluid and changing to its environment.
“If you look at what Bayer Leverkusen (do) in the build-up, this idea of fluidity. Thiago Motta now at Juventus with seven central players. The idea is if I can bring in a dynamic that is harder to read from an opposition standpoint which would mean in turn, I’m more effective with the build-up. I think that’s a healthier way.
“What do you need to counter that? You need players who are smart and versatile in playing different positions.
“Part of fluidity is rotations. We will still have common principles which will be evident but sometimes you’ll see the full-back in as a 10, sometimes you’ll see one of the attackers drop down as a six. There’s numerous possibilities.
“But if I say to my out-and-out nine who has played as a nine his whole life, to drop into midfield and he’s uncomfortable, it’s going to break down every quickly.
“This is why I talk about the importance of versatile players and playing in different positions. They’re not uncomfortable and putting them in those positions, they’ll naturally adapt to what’s happening in a game.”
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Throughout 2023-24, Italiano transformed the Phoenix after stepping up from his role as assistant coach under Talay in Wellington – implementing a clear vision that resulted in an historic run to the Semi-Finals.
It was built on a solid defensive foundation with a low block and counter-attacking patterns.
But as he prepares for 2024-25 and a Round 1 clash at home to Western United on October 20, this variation of his Phoenix squad is more closely aligned to how he wants his teams to play.
“I don’t think it will be any different to next year and the year after. Where I think I want to play now, if I don’t think I can evolve or progress at a later stage, and I’m not winning and something’s not working. Evolution and progression is a natural part of football,” Italiano said.
“I even said it in my job interview – it’s evolution, not revolution. I’m not here to reinvent the wheel. I’m here to work on the basis of what was done before.
“I can obviously steer the ship. I always use the big oiltanker as the analogy. Very hard to make it turn quickly. It’s a slow process.
“In an ideal world – losing half your squad or half your starters, is that ideal? No. Did they go onto bigger and better things, and got to where they needed where we all agreed to at the beginning of the year? Yes. We have a player playing in Ligue 1, one in MLS etc. That’s fantastic. But I look at this now as an advantage because now I can bring in players more aligned where I think we can evolve.
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“Will that guarantee results at the start? Will we stylistically play the way we want or get to where we need to? That will take time.
“I also have running in the background, evolving and getting all these younger players to also fit in with the senior players. It’s a complex dynamic.
“For me, my intention is always I want to win the league. I want to play football that is recognisable and something fans are proud of. Every time you watch the Phoenix play, even if you’re not a fan, you’re going to love watching us play.
“We went a long way to doing that last season. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea the way we played, but that’s football. Do I want us to get to a point where we’re more dominant and in control of all areas of the game? Yes. I always think there’s this elusive game where you can play perfect. No one is going to get to it but you can work towards it.”
