After losing 2-0 to Manchester City on Tuesday night, Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou said that the foundations of what he is trying to build had been revealed to be “fairly fragile” — but not necessarily by events on the pitch.
It was a strange night, with tempers fraying and many Spurs supporters actively wanting the team to lose and dent the title hopes of local rivals Arsenal.
Postecoglou was clearly furious after the game but would not elaborate on what he meant by those “fairly fragile” comments and what it was that had irritated him.
Nothing, really, from his successful days at Yokohama Marinos or Brisbane Roar or the Socceroo’s or South Melbourne Hellas can hold a candle to the photograph taken of him as a five-year-old holding a card with the number 24 on it.
That was his immigration number when his parents took him out of the military junta regime of Athens, Greece to a safer but uncertain haven of Melbourne in Australia. That’s where it all started. That’s why the photograph has a poignancy.
The little boy is looking down the camera lens with the same kind of stare that many years later, as Australia coach, would regularly burn a hole in the back of the head of his players in training, said former Socceroo Tim Cahill.
His friend, Paul Trimboli, said Postecoglou doesn’t say a lot, he doesn’t make things comfortable for people, and for a lot of folks “that can be unnerving”.
Even at five, you can see some of that in the picture. A steely look.
This was Angelos Postecoglou. Five years later his parents legally changed his name to Angelos Postek’s, but he never cared for Postek’s.
“It was a fad in those days to shorten your name if you were Greek,” he said years ago. “I never liked it, and I never used it. I was proud of my background, but when it came to my first passport and my first driver’s license, there was nothing I could do about it.”
On Saturday, Postecoglou won his fifth domestic trophy from a possible six since his move to Scotland from Japan in the summer of 2021. On Tuesday, he was officially unveiled as the new head coach of Tottenham Hotspur.
A Celtic manager winning lots of titles is nothing new, but there is something different about this.
Postecoglou didn’t inherit a champion team in need of minor tweaks as, say, Brendan Rodgers had done before him. The season before Postecoglou took over, the club lost their bid for 10 league titles in a row by a whopping 25 points and the mood music at Celtic was dismal.
Rangers had knocked them out of the Scottish Cup, Ross County had eliminated them from the League Cup, there were furious protests and banners calling for heads to roll. The atmosphere was toxic. Legions of fans spoke of their disillusionment. They felt they were being taken for granted and ignored.
Manager Neil Lennon was sacked. Peter Lawwell, the long-standing chief executive, signalled his intention to resign. He was replaced by Dominic McKay, who lasted two months and then left for reasons unexplained.
For the longest time, the club wooed Eddie Howe. They waited and waited for him to agree to become their next manager but months down the track, he said no. Cue more supporter thunder.
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