It is not just Australian fans hoping that Ange Postecoglou can turn things around in North London. Bar owners in South Korea have fingers crossed too. Jongno, in central Seoul, is the place to be on New Year’s Eve and on the run-up to the big night, big screen TVs in the window displays of fried chicken and beer establishments are still showing Tottenham’s 5-0 thrashing of Southampton from mid-December, hoping to tempt punters in off the freezing streets to watch Son Heung-min. Even two weeks after that win, it was a marketing tactic of diminishing returns. It’s now been six weeks, and just one point has been added in the league.
Diminishing returns could describe Spurs’ second season under the first coach from the Asian Football Confederation to manage in the world’s most popular league, and the man in question is looking as haggard as the team’s backline. Die-hard Australian fans can be evangelical about football’s status at home – understandably so given its position in the sporting landscape down under – and sensitive about how their game is perceived abroad. But all of Asian football will also be hoping, or should be, for that second-season trophy.
For there are bigger prizes at stake. After so many losses, criticism is inevitable and understandable – and there has been some solid support – but the wider discourse quickly features nicknames such as “Impostecoglou”. It’s a catchy moniker, often accompanied by phrases such as “out of his depth” and could be heard even before this dismal sequence. At its core is a dismissal of football in certain parts of the world.
Title wins with Brisbane Roar and Yokohama F.Marinos should not be sniffed at but, by some, they are as if the 59-year-old somehow had peak-era Galacticos at his disposal. Australia’s salary cap means that, in the absence of big spending, coaches can make a massive difference. The league in Japan, well on its way to becoming an elite football nation, has the increasingly rare combination of both being one of the strongest leagues around and hugely competitive.
Winning in these environments, especially Japan given the huge cultural differences on and off the pitch, makes for more impressive coaching feats than most seen in the Premier League, yet are often seen as inconsequential. Personally, I’ve always thought that Australia’s 2015 Asian Cup triumph on home soil under Postecoglou wasn’t that impressive, but, as Gareth Southgate would surely agree, winning a continental championship is far from easy.
It took a long time for Asia, Africa and North America to get more than the crumbs that fell off the European and South American tables when it came to World Cup spots. It took many players for it to be acknowledged that Asian players could do more than sell shirts. The same has yet to happen when it comes to coaches.
How else to explain why Pitso Mosimane never found a job in Europe despite winning three CAF Champions League titles with clubs from different countries. If “Jingles” wasn’t African, it is unlikely that he would now be working in Iran. Morocco’s Walid Regragui is another success, but that is not always enough without the right passport.
“I think it’s impossible that Manchester City or Barcelona will bring an African or Arab coach,” Regragui said. “They don’t even think about it, as if we’re not worthy, as if we are ignorant in football, or we’re incapable of such a task.”
Given the stress that Postecoglou is clearly feeling and all the issues at Tottenham, being a standard-bearer for coaches from football’s global south is probably not one of his priorities. If the axe does fall, however, then his time in North London will go a long way to defining his career so far, with nuance and mitigating circumstances also being shown the door.
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Like it or not, people around the world watch the Premier League more than any other, the English football media is more influential than any other, and success in Australia, Japan and especially Scotland would be footnotes to the big failure on the big stage.
It would be a blow for a wider coaching community. Even those owners or bosses who do think about fishing outside the usual waters often conclude it is not worth the hassle and extra scepticism that such hirings attract. Success, on the other hand, would make it all easier and help to open doors, or at least, emails. After Postecoglou’s success in Yokohama, the club fully embraced Australians, with Kevin Muscat, Harry Kewell and John Hutchinson next to arrive in Kanagawa.
If Postecoglou survives and then thrives in London, the European route for more Australians – with Muscat a prime candidate after recently adding the Chinese title to the ones he won in Japan and Australia – would be a little smoother. Perhaps for Asian coaches, as well as Africans and Americans, too. It may, however, already be too late.
Source: theguardian.com
