Tottenham Hotspur appoint Australian Ange Postekoglu as manager

A very curious character has appeared on the list of coaches of the leading clubs in the English Premier League (EPL). Tottenham, who failed the season, decided to appoint Ange Postekoglu to the post of mentor. He will be the first Australian to be entrusted with a top English division team. The reputation of an effective specialist and at least some fame Postekoglu earned only in recent years thanks to his work with the Scottish Celtic.

“Tottenham” announced on the appointment as head coach of the 57-year-old Ange Postekoglu. A four-year contract was signed with Postecoglu. With his predecessor, the famous Italian Antonio Conte, the Londoners, who failed the season (they finished eighth in the national championship, outside the “European Cup zone”), broke up in March, after which the team was led by Christian Stellini and Ryan Mason as acting coaches. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy, commenting on Postecoglou’s arrival, said he hoped he would bring a “positive attitude” to the team and give it “fast, attacking” football.

This is a very curious personnel decision.

Ange Postekoglou is the first Australian to be entrusted with an Premier League club

And right away the club, which is included in the list of its giants, even though the Londoners have not yet obtained the most valuable prizes. But this is not the point, but the fact that he is a rather mysterious figure.

Postekoglu spent his entire playing career in the 1980s and 1990s in his native Australia, that is, in fact, in the backyard of world football. True, he was lucky that the legendary Hungarian scorer Ferenc Puskas was the coach of his South Melbourne team. And Postekoglu admitted that thanks to him he decided to master this specialty. For many years, however, he coached far from football centers. It is unlikely that anyone paid attention to the prizes he won, for example, with the same South Melbourne, another Australian club Brisbane Roar or the Japanese Yokohama Marinos.

Postekoglou’s some notoriety was brought only by his work at the head of the Australian national team. With it, he ingloriously performed at the 2014 World Cup, losing all three matches in the group – Chileans, the Dutch and Spaniards, but in 2015 he achieved success in the Asian Cup.

He still remains formally the most prominent in the history of this team. Then the Australians with Postekoglu qualified for the next world championship, which was held in Russia in 2018, but after the selection he said goodbye to them.

In fact, Tottenham’s management, of course, was not inspired by these long-standing and not too high-profile achievements of Ange Postekoglou, but by his European debut. It took place in 2021, when the Australian was invited by the Scottish Celtic. His situation was similar to the one in which Tottenham found themselves now, adjusted for the specifics of the championship. Scotland has two clear leaders with no competitors. So, Celtic, before the arrival of Postecoglu, was 25 points behind its only rival Glasgow Rangers in the championship, which amounted to collapse. Ange Postekoglu immediately corrected the situation. The next two golds went to Celtic, who took five of the six domestic titles at stake during the Australian’s tenure.

At the same time, it will be very difficult for him to perform the same trick again, already in London, and not in Glasgow, due to circumstances. A number of sources, including authorities such as the BBC, have reported that Londoners may be saying goodbye to several key players. And most notable among the potential losses is the club’s offensive leader Harry Kane, Tottenham’s pivotal figure in recent years, who is interested in Real Madrid.

Alexey Dospekhov