AustrianHotspur
Well-Known Member
- Mar 9, 2018
- 223
- 1,231
Too bad it's only available in the UK 
Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou
- Thread starter Archibald&Crooks
- Start date
Timbo Tottenham
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- May 7, 2006
- 2,334
- 6,299
Too bad it's only available in the UK
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bubble07
Well-Known Member
- Dec 27, 2004
- 23,162
- 30,335
Just when you think you couldn't possibly love Ange more than you already do...
Even the little "welcome home, mate" as Lineker arrives - just effortlessly charming & warm. Such a class act.
Postecoglou on being a refugee, trophies and waiting
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou tells Gary Lineker he never thought his Premier League chance would come and that he was "last man standing" this summer.www.bbc.co.uk
What a guy
Colonel_Klinck
Well-Known Member
- May 19, 2004
- 12,719
- 23,322
If they have filmed it why haven't they released the whole interview on video? I'll listen to it at work but just seems silly to just release 3 mins on video.
C-oops
Well-Known Member
- Jul 27, 2008
- 4,037
- 3,373
They have and the link to it has even been posted in this thread believe it or not.
tevezito
In the cup for Tottingham
- Jun 8, 2004
- 963
- 1,611
But love the way he first says he manages as if he’s going to be there for ten years. Now he’s reached the pinnacle, maybe he will be around for at least a bit more than three.Also says "I have never stayed anywhere longer than three years "
PaulThurston
Well-Known Member
- Sep 30, 2020
- 1,474
- 5,809
It comes over as a couple of ex players chatting about football.
curlacious
Don’t look at me. I’m irrelevant.
- Aug 29, 2017
- 2,129
- 10,105
This audio version might be? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gfpq97Too bad it's only available in the UK
SirHarryHotspur
Well-Known Member
- Aug 9, 2017
- 5,162
- 7,708
Should be , according to the BBC website , BBC sounds available outside the UK
I live outside the UK. Can I use BBC iPlayer? | iPlayer help
No. BBC iPlayer is funded by the UK TV licence and its use is restricted to UK residents only. While you can’t watch TV programmes, here’s a list of services you can use if you live outside the UK:
Gassin's finest
C'est diabolique
- May 12, 2010
- 37,611
- 88,474
One in the hole, you say...
muppetman
Well-Known Member
- Jul 29, 2011
- 9,042
- 25,242
Good write up on Ange's approach to a derby game.
Sep 22, 2023
There are innumerable ways Ange Postecoglou differs from Antonio Conte, but a couple of examples from big derby matches offer a useful counterpoint.
In the equivalent fixture of Sunday’s north London derby at the Emirates last season, Conte performed football’s version of waving the white flag. Spurs were trailing 3-1 and down to 10 men with 19 minutes to go when Conte replaced forwards Son Heung-min and Richarlison with defensive midfielder Yves Bissouma and wing-back Matt Doherty. It didn’t feel especially befitting of the club’s traditions, especially to fans who remembered their improbable comeback 14 years ago, when they were bottom of the table and trailing Arsenal 4-2 at the same ground heading into stoppage time but pulled off a 4-4 draw.
Emerson Royal’s red card in last season’s derby offered some mitigation, but being down to 10 men does not have to mean an ultra-defensive approach in a derby.
Just ask Postecoglou. Speak to those who covered his Yokohama F Marinos team and they will point you towards a Kanagawa derby match away at Kawasaki Frontale (Kanagawa is the prefecture, or county in English terms, where both teams are based) in November 2020.
Frontale were en route to the title, while Marinos were struggling having won it the season before. When Marinos had goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka sent off after 40 minutes with the score at 0-0, Postecoglou opted against a more defensive approach. He didn’t switch to a 4-4-1 formation but instead opted for a 4-3-2/4-2-1-2. His side kept doing the same things after falling behind to a Kaoru Mitouma goal soon after half-time and went for the winner after equalising with half an hour left. In the end, Kawasaki Frontale won 3-1 with two very late goals, but it was an indication of Postecoglou’s refusal to compromise — even in derby matches, even in fraught situations.
【公式】ハイライト：川崎フロンターレvs横浜Ｆ・マリノス 明治安田生命Ｊ１リーグ 第30節 2020/11/18
Share
Watch on
Derbies offer many interesting insights into how Postecoglu operates. He learnt how much derbies mean to people during his formative years in Australia, when he would sit with his dad in the stands watching South Melbourne Hellas against different local rivals.
Then, as a manager in Japan, he used those games as a way of showing his team wasn’t afraid of anyone.
His experience at Celtic saw Postecoglou sometimes being a bit more pragmatic, but generally refusing to deviate from his ingrained style. It was also clear very quickly, partly thanks to those early years, that he understood just what the Old Firm rivalry meant to the players and supporters. And though he didn’t like making special plans for these games, he didn’t shy away from speaking about their significance.
GO DEEPER
Derby Days, Glasgow: The Old Firm
Jose Mourinho set up Spurs extremely negatively against a pretty average Arsenal side for his final north London derby — a 2-1 defeat at the Emirates in March 2021. He was sacked a month later.
Nuno Espirito Santo appeared so frazzled in his first, and only, north London derby that his team were set up in a way that seemed to be missing a midfield for Spurs’ 3-1 defeat at the Emirates in September 2021. He, too, was sacked a month later.
Then there was Conte last season, his cause not helped by that 3-1 Emirates loss being followed by a 2-0 home defeat in January, when in the first half there was an embarrassing chasm between one front-footed attacking team and one that, despite being at home, sat back and played on the counter.
It was Arsenal’s first away league win at Spurs since 2014 and the aggregate score of 5-1 in the two derbies last season was the biggest margin for either team since the Premier League’s inception.
That, and the 24 points between the sides last season, is the gulf Postecoglou has to bridge.
Postecoglou has always appreciated the importance of derby matches. Code Sports writer Adam Peacock knows Postecoglou well, having covered him extensively, and explains how those South Melbourne games with his dad shaped how he views derby matches.
“How he presents himself, if not as a fan, then as someone who understands their perspective, is borne out of those days,” Peacock says. “He’s never forgotten it. His foundations of what football means to him were formed right next to his old man. He’ll tap into that this week to appreciate what this game means to Spurs fans.”
As Brisbane Roar coach, Postecoglou speaks with Issey Nakajima-Farran during an A-League match in 2012 (Matt Roberts/Getty Images)
In those early days, South Melbourne’s local rivals were Heidelberg United (another club founded by Greek immigrants) and Footscray JUST, the team of the Yugoslavian (now Serbian) immigrant population. Once Postecoglou began playing for and then managing South Melbourne in the 1980s and 1990s, one of their biggest rivals was the Melbourne Knights — the team of the Croatian diaspora that, for a couple of years, included Mark Viduka.
“They were big games,” Peacock says. “They didn’t have the size of the crowds he’s used to, but if you ask Ange, he’d say those games had a fair bit riding on them. And as manager, he would have had a whole heap of fans at South Melbourne saying, ‘You realise you can’t lose this game’.”
After his first job in management with South Melbourne, which started when he was barely out of his thirties, Postecoglou’s next role in Australian club football was with Brisbane Roar. Gold Coast United were their main rivals, but it wasn’t a matchup that had major national significance.
When he left Brisbane for Melbourne Victory in 2012, Postecoglou’s first game was against their rivals Melbourne Heart (whose chief executive at the time was Tottenham’s new director of football Scott Munn, and who have since been rebranded Melbourne City as part of the City Football Group). It’s one of the big rivalries in Australian football and Postecoglou lost that first game 2-1 in front of more than 42,000 supporters.
GO DEEPER
Goalkeeper suffers ‘concussion and severe lacerations’ in A-League pitch invasion
But Victory enacted their revenge by beating their rivals the subsequent two times they played each other that season. The second of which, a 2-1 win in February 2013, was a thrilling display and an encapsulation of Postecoglou’s ideas.
And he was happy to allow supporters to revel in these kind of wins. His rhetoric was similar to his words on Saturday after the win over Sheffield United: “Let them go and enjoy it. My role is not to burst people’s bubbles. Let them get excited, let them get ahead of themselves. That’s the beauty of being a supporter.”
Looking back on Postecoglou’s time in domestic Australian football, Peacock says: “Before the derby matches, Postecoglou was the same. He’d say, ‘Let the supporters get excited and carried away’. He’ll play on that narrative this week I’m sure because it’s very real. It’s how he approaches pressure, which is to say: ‘It’s there, it’s very present. Don’t try and pretend it’s not’.”
As for his tactical approach, Postecoglou never made more than small tweaks for the Melbourne derbies.
“The famous Ange line down here that’s always quoted is, ‘My Plan B is to do Plan A better’,” Peacock says. “Ange won’t be looking at Arsenal and saying we need to set up more defensively. There’ll be little tactical tweaks about movements, but there won’t be a mindset switch in any way.”
50:30
That commitment to staying true to his system even, or especially, in big derby matches carried on in Japan. The earlier example of him continuing to attack even after his goalkeeper had been sent off against Kawasaki Frontale is the most salient example.
“To Ange, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 men and we’re losing and it’s a big derby against a team chasing the title, we’re still going to do it our way,” says commentator Tsuneyuki Shimoda, who covered that game.
Wataru Funaki, a freelance journalist who covers Yokohama F Marinos, adds: “Ange doesn’t like to prepare something special for specific teams, so don’t expect anything special on Sunday. His mindset is that the most difficult thing is to play your normal way even if it’s a really big occasion.
“A lot of Asian managers, and especially Australian people, were really into Ange and believed in his philosophy and strategy. He’s like a charismatic religious leader. It’s like he became an Asian cult hero.”
GO DEEPER
Ange the orator: How the Spurs boss makes language his 'most effective weapon'
Postecoglou left Japan to manage Celtic in 2021 and the sense from those in Scotland was that he appreciated the significance of the Old Firm derby straight away.
Before his first game against Rangers, Postecoglou eschewed cliches about it being just another match and spoke honestly and straightforwardly about its importance.
“As a manager, sometimes you say, ‘It’s just another game’… well, this is not, because of what it means, particularly to our supporters, and what it means to this football club,” he said.
The emphasis was always on embracing the pressure.
Celtic lost that first derby 1-0 but Postecoglou once again showed he wouldn’t be cowed. Rangers had gone unbeaten when winning the title the previous season and had dominated the derby in recent years, winning five and drawing one of the previous six. Postecoglou, though, had Celtic play on the front foot and the defeat came despite having 66 per cent of the ball and creating the better chances.
Postecoglou celebrates with striker Erik against Kawasaki Frontale (Masashi Hara/Getty Images)
By the time the two sides met again the following February, Celtic dismantled their rivals 3-0. After the game, Postecoglou tapped into those early experiences he had as a child in Melbourne watching derby games: “I said to the players that we had 60,000 in tonight and I’m sure a lot of them walked in with some problems in their life. For these 95 minutes, we made them forget that and feel good — that’s something special.”
However, the next Old Firm derby, a couple of months later at Ibrox, was a demonstration that Postecoglou, for all his idealism, could be pragmatic. Celtic went behind early to a Rangers team headed for the Europa League final but came back to lead 2-1 just before half-time. In the second half, they were forced to defend resolutely, grinding out a win that was a crucial step towards regaining the Scottish title.
“That game was a bit ‘backs to the wall, defending your box’, especially in the second half,” says Hamish Carton, a Celtic podcaster and author of Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic. “So he can do that. Some of his criticisms early on were that there was only one plan, which was to attack, and that would be his undoing. But there definitely were occasions when Celtic had to be resolute. In fact, for both derbies at Hampden Park last season (one-goal wins for Celtic in the League Cup final and Scottish Cup semi-final), they were really holding on for the last 25 minutes and had to be really strong defensively.”
Those close games, coupled with a 3-0 defeat in a dead rubber in May, gave some at Rangers the feeling they were starting to wrestle back a bit of the initiative in the Old Firm games.
Postecolgu celebrates winning the Scottish Cup against Rangers (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
But even if that was the case, it came after some bruising defeats. A 4-0 defeat in September 2022 was held up as the high point for Celtic’s “We never stop” mantra under Postecoglou. Rangers were in the game but a quick throw-in and similarly quick free kick helped Celtic to a 2-0 lead after barely more than half an hour. It was the perfect example of how to execute what made them such a special team and “not let the chaos derail what we’re all about”.
Postecoglou was then asked about the challenge of keeping his and the team’s emotions in check before the League Cup final a few months later in February 2023.
“I am the manager,” he said. “I am not a fan. Our supporters don’t expect me to have the same emotion going into a big game like this. They don’t want me to be nervous or anxious or angry or whatever it is they feel at a particular time. They want me to be under control and make sure I am preparing the team. All the boys will have their emotions heightened, but within that context, we have still got to play our football. Ultimately, if we are going to be successful, that’s what we need to do.”
After winning that final 2-1, Postecoglou gave an insight into why he relishes derby matches so much and why it’s not because of any extra needle they bring. “I get so much more excited by beating teams I think are really good and are managed by managers I respect who are on the top of their game. That is what gets me going.”
How excited he must be, then, by the chance to take on a huge rival who were so impressive last season in finishing second under one of Europe’s most highly rated young managers at a ground that has been such a graveyard for Spurs since their only Premier League win there 13 years ago.
Staying true to their identity, not letting the chaos derail them, and embracing the challenge will be among Postecoglou’s key messages to his players. And so whatever the result on Sunday, don’t expect the team’s approach to change.
How Ange Postecoglou does derbies – ‘Don’t pretend it’s not different’
Charlie EccleshareSep 22, 2023
There are innumerable ways Ange Postecoglou differs from Antonio Conte, but a couple of examples from big derby matches offer a useful counterpoint.
In the equivalent fixture of Sunday’s north London derby at the Emirates last season, Conte performed football’s version of waving the white flag. Spurs were trailing 3-1 and down to 10 men with 19 minutes to go when Conte replaced forwards Son Heung-min and Richarlison with defensive midfielder Yves Bissouma and wing-back Matt Doherty. It didn’t feel especially befitting of the club’s traditions, especially to fans who remembered their improbable comeback 14 years ago, when they were bottom of the table and trailing Arsenal 4-2 at the same ground heading into stoppage time but pulled off a 4-4 draw.
Emerson Royal’s red card in last season’s derby offered some mitigation, but being down to 10 men does not have to mean an ultra-defensive approach in a derby.
Just ask Postecoglou. Speak to those who covered his Yokohama F Marinos team and they will point you towards a Kanagawa derby match away at Kawasaki Frontale (Kanagawa is the prefecture, or county in English terms, where both teams are based) in November 2020.
Frontale were en route to the title, while Marinos were struggling having won it the season before. When Marinos had goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka sent off after 40 minutes with the score at 0-0, Postecoglou opted against a more defensive approach. He didn’t switch to a 4-4-1 formation but instead opted for a 4-3-2/4-2-1-2. His side kept doing the same things after falling behind to a Kaoru Mitouma goal soon after half-time and went for the winner after equalising with half an hour left. In the end, Kawasaki Frontale won 3-1 with two very late goals, but it was an indication of Postecoglou’s refusal to compromise — even in derby matches, even in fraught situations.
【公式】ハイライト：川崎フロンターレvs横浜Ｆ・マリノス 明治安田生命Ｊ１リーグ 第30節 2020/11/18
Share
Watch on
Derbies offer many interesting insights into how Postecoglu operates. He learnt how much derbies mean to people during his formative years in Australia, when he would sit with his dad in the stands watching South Melbourne Hellas against different local rivals.
Then, as a manager in Japan, he used those games as a way of showing his team wasn’t afraid of anyone.
His experience at Celtic saw Postecoglou sometimes being a bit more pragmatic, but generally refusing to deviate from his ingrained style. It was also clear very quickly, partly thanks to those early years, that he understood just what the Old Firm rivalry meant to the players and supporters. And though he didn’t like making special plans for these games, he didn’t shy away from speaking about their significance.
GO DEEPER
Derby Days, Glasgow: The Old Firm
Jose Mourinho set up Spurs extremely negatively against a pretty average Arsenal side for his final north London derby — a 2-1 defeat at the Emirates in March 2021. He was sacked a month later.
Nuno Espirito Santo appeared so frazzled in his first, and only, north London derby that his team were set up in a way that seemed to be missing a midfield for Spurs’ 3-1 defeat at the Emirates in September 2021. He, too, was sacked a month later.
Then there was Conte last season, his cause not helped by that 3-1 Emirates loss being followed by a 2-0 home defeat in January, when in the first half there was an embarrassing chasm between one front-footed attacking team and one that, despite being at home, sat back and played on the counter.
It was Arsenal’s first away league win at Spurs since 2014 and the aggregate score of 5-1 in the two derbies last season was the biggest margin for either team since the Premier League’s inception.
That, and the 24 points between the sides last season, is the gulf Postecoglou has to bridge.
Postecoglou has always appreciated the importance of derby matches. Code Sports writer Adam Peacock knows Postecoglou well, having covered him extensively, and explains how those South Melbourne games with his dad shaped how he views derby matches.
“How he presents himself, if not as a fan, then as someone who understands their perspective, is borne out of those days,” Peacock says. “He’s never forgotten it. His foundations of what football means to him were formed right next to his old man. He’ll tap into that this week to appreciate what this game means to Spurs fans.”
As Brisbane Roar coach, Postecoglou speaks with Issey Nakajima-Farran during an A-League match in 2012 (Matt Roberts/Getty Images)
In those early days, South Melbourne’s local rivals were Heidelberg United (another club founded by Greek immigrants) and Footscray JUST, the team of the Yugoslavian (now Serbian) immigrant population. Once Postecoglou began playing for and then managing South Melbourne in the 1980s and 1990s, one of their biggest rivals was the Melbourne Knights — the team of the Croatian diaspora that, for a couple of years, included Mark Viduka.
“They were big games,” Peacock says. “They didn’t have the size of the crowds he’s used to, but if you ask Ange, he’d say those games had a fair bit riding on them. And as manager, he would have had a whole heap of fans at South Melbourne saying, ‘You realise you can’t lose this game’.”
After his first job in management with South Melbourne, which started when he was barely out of his thirties, Postecoglou’s next role in Australian club football was with Brisbane Roar. Gold Coast United were their main rivals, but it wasn’t a matchup that had major national significance.
When he left Brisbane for Melbourne Victory in 2012, Postecoglou’s first game was against their rivals Melbourne Heart (whose chief executive at the time was Tottenham’s new director of football Scott Munn, and who have since been rebranded Melbourne City as part of the City Football Group). It’s one of the big rivalries in Australian football and Postecoglou lost that first game 2-1 in front of more than 42,000 supporters.
GO DEEPER
Goalkeeper suffers ‘concussion and severe lacerations’ in A-League pitch invasion
But Victory enacted their revenge by beating their rivals the subsequent two times they played each other that season. The second of which, a 2-1 win in February 2013, was a thrilling display and an encapsulation of Postecoglou’s ideas.
And he was happy to allow supporters to revel in these kind of wins. His rhetoric was similar to his words on Saturday after the win over Sheffield United: “Let them go and enjoy it. My role is not to burst people’s bubbles. Let them get excited, let them get ahead of themselves. That’s the beauty of being a supporter.”
Looking back on Postecoglou’s time in domestic Australian football, Peacock says: “Before the derby matches, Postecoglou was the same. He’d say, ‘Let the supporters get excited and carried away’. He’ll play on that narrative this week I’m sure because it’s very real. It’s how he approaches pressure, which is to say: ‘It’s there, it’s very present. Don’t try and pretend it’s not’.”
As for his tactical approach, Postecoglou never made more than small tweaks for the Melbourne derbies.
“The famous Ange line down here that’s always quoted is, ‘My Plan B is to do Plan A better’,” Peacock says. “Ange won’t be looking at Arsenal and saying we need to set up more defensively. There’ll be little tactical tweaks about movements, but there won’t be a mindset switch in any way.”
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That commitment to staying true to his system even, or especially, in big derby matches carried on in Japan. The earlier example of him continuing to attack even after his goalkeeper had been sent off against Kawasaki Frontale is the most salient example.
“To Ange, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 men and we’re losing and it’s a big derby against a team chasing the title, we’re still going to do it our way,” says commentator Tsuneyuki Shimoda, who covered that game.
Wataru Funaki, a freelance journalist who covers Yokohama F Marinos, adds: “Ange doesn’t like to prepare something special for specific teams, so don’t expect anything special on Sunday. His mindset is that the most difficult thing is to play your normal way even if it’s a really big occasion.
“A lot of Asian managers, and especially Australian people, were really into Ange and believed in his philosophy and strategy. He’s like a charismatic religious leader. It’s like he became an Asian cult hero.”
GO DEEPER
Ange the orator: How the Spurs boss makes language his 'most effective weapon'
Postecoglou left Japan to manage Celtic in 2021 and the sense from those in Scotland was that he appreciated the significance of the Old Firm derby straight away.
Before his first game against Rangers, Postecoglou eschewed cliches about it being just another match and spoke honestly and straightforwardly about its importance.
“As a manager, sometimes you say, ‘It’s just another game’… well, this is not, because of what it means, particularly to our supporters, and what it means to this football club,” he said.
The emphasis was always on embracing the pressure.
Celtic lost that first derby 1-0 but Postecoglou once again showed he wouldn’t be cowed. Rangers had gone unbeaten when winning the title the previous season and had dominated the derby in recent years, winning five and drawing one of the previous six. Postecoglou, though, had Celtic play on the front foot and the defeat came despite having 66 per cent of the ball and creating the better chances.
Postecoglou celebrates with striker Erik against Kawasaki Frontale (Masashi Hara/Getty Images)
By the time the two sides met again the following February, Celtic dismantled their rivals 3-0. After the game, Postecoglou tapped into those early experiences he had as a child in Melbourne watching derby games: “I said to the players that we had 60,000 in tonight and I’m sure a lot of them walked in with some problems in their life. For these 95 minutes, we made them forget that and feel good — that’s something special.”
However, the next Old Firm derby, a couple of months later at Ibrox, was a demonstration that Postecoglou, for all his idealism, could be pragmatic. Celtic went behind early to a Rangers team headed for the Europa League final but came back to lead 2-1 just before half-time. In the second half, they were forced to defend resolutely, grinding out a win that was a crucial step towards regaining the Scottish title.
“That game was a bit ‘backs to the wall, defending your box’, especially in the second half,” says Hamish Carton, a Celtic podcaster and author of Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic. “So he can do that. Some of his criticisms early on were that there was only one plan, which was to attack, and that would be his undoing. But there definitely were occasions when Celtic had to be resolute. In fact, for both derbies at Hampden Park last season (one-goal wins for Celtic in the League Cup final and Scottish Cup semi-final), they were really holding on for the last 25 minutes and had to be really strong defensively.”
Those close games, coupled with a 3-0 defeat in a dead rubber in May, gave some at Rangers the feeling they were starting to wrestle back a bit of the initiative in the Old Firm games.
Postecolgu celebrates winning the Scottish Cup against Rangers (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
But even if that was the case, it came after some bruising defeats. A 4-0 defeat in September 2022 was held up as the high point for Celtic’s “We never stop” mantra under Postecoglou. Rangers were in the game but a quick throw-in and similarly quick free kick helped Celtic to a 2-0 lead after barely more than half an hour. It was the perfect example of how to execute what made them such a special team and “not let the chaos derail what we’re all about”.
Postecoglou was then asked about the challenge of keeping his and the team’s emotions in check before the League Cup final a few months later in February 2023.
“I am the manager,” he said. “I am not a fan. Our supporters don’t expect me to have the same emotion going into a big game like this. They don’t want me to be nervous or anxious or angry or whatever it is they feel at a particular time. They want me to be under control and make sure I am preparing the team. All the boys will have their emotions heightened, but within that context, we have still got to play our football. Ultimately, if we are going to be successful, that’s what we need to do.”
After winning that final 2-1, Postecoglou gave an insight into why he relishes derby matches so much and why it’s not because of any extra needle they bring. “I get so much more excited by beating teams I think are really good and are managed by managers I respect who are on the top of their game. That is what gets me going.”
How excited he must be, then, by the chance to take on a huge rival who were so impressive last season in finishing second under one of Europe’s most highly rated young managers at a ground that has been such a graveyard for Spurs since their only Premier League win there 13 years ago.
Staying true to their identity, not letting the chaos derail them, and embracing the challenge will be among Postecoglou’s key messages to his players. And so whatever the result on Sunday, don’t expect the team’s approach to change.
Bluto Blutarsky
Well-Known Member
- Mar 4, 2021
- 15,199
- 70,791
Good write up on Ange's approach to a derby game.
How Ange Postecoglou does derbies – ‘Don’t pretend it’s not different’
Charlie Eccleshare
Sep 22, 2023
There are innumerable ways Ange Postecoglou differs from Antonio Conte, but a couple of examples from big derby matches offer a useful counterpoint.
In the equivalent fixture of Sunday’s north London derby at the Emirates last season, Conte performed football’s version of waving the white flag. Spurs were trailing 3-1 and down to 10 men with 19 minutes to go when Conte replaced forwards Son Heung-min and Richarlison with defensive midfielder Yves Bissouma and wing-back Matt Doherty. It didn’t feel especially befitting of the club’s traditions, especially to fans who remembered their improbable comeback 14 years ago, when they were bottom of the table and trailing Arsenal 4-2 at the same ground heading into stoppage time but pulled off a 4-4 draw.
Emerson Royal’s red card in last season’s derby offered some mitigation, but being down to 10 men does not have to mean an ultra-defensive approach in a derby.
Just ask Postecoglou. Speak to those who covered his Yokohama F Marinos team and they will point you towards a Kanagawa derby match away at Kawasaki Frontale (Kanagawa is the prefecture, or county in English terms, where both teams are based) in November 2020.
Frontale were en route to the title, while Marinos were struggling having won it the season before. When Marinos had goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka sent off after 40 minutes with the score at 0-0, Postecoglou opted against a more defensive approach. He didn’t switch to a 4-4-1 formation but instead opted for a 4-3-2/4-2-1-2. His side kept doing the same things after falling behind to a Kaoru Mitouma goal soon after half-time and went for the winner after equalising with half an hour left. In the end, Kawasaki Frontale won 3-1 with two very late goals, but it was an indication of Postecoglou’s refusal to compromise — even in derby matches, even in fraught situations.
【公式】ハイライト：川崎フロンターレvs横浜Ｆ・マリノス 明治安田生命Ｊ１リーグ 第30節 2020/11/18
Share
Watch on
Derbies offer many interesting insights into how Postecoglu operates. He learnt how much derbies mean to people during his formative years in Australia, when he would sit with his dad in the stands watching South Melbourne Hellas against different local rivals.
Then, as a manager in Japan, he used those games as a way of showing his team wasn’t afraid of anyone.
His experience at Celtic saw Postecoglou sometimes being a bit more pragmatic, but generally refusing to deviate from his ingrained style. It was also clear very quickly, partly thanks to those early years, that he understood just what the Old Firm rivalry meant to the players and supporters. And though he didn’t like making special plans for these games, he didn’t shy away from speaking about their significance.
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Jose Mourinho set up Spurs extremely negatively against a pretty average Arsenal side for his final north London derby — a 2-1 defeat at the Emirates in March 2021. He was sacked a month later.
Nuno Espirito Santo appeared so frazzled in his first, and only, north London derby that his team were set up in a way that seemed to be missing a midfield for Spurs’ 3-1 defeat at the Emirates in September 2021. He, too, was sacked a month later.
Then there was Conte last season, his cause not helped by that 3-1 Emirates loss being followed by a 2-0 home defeat in January, when in the first half there was an embarrassing chasm between one front-footed attacking team and one that, despite being at home, sat back and played on the counter.
It was Arsenal’s first away league win at Spurs since 2014 and the aggregate score of 5-1 in the two derbies last season was the biggest margin for either team since the Premier League’s inception.
That, and the 24 points between the sides last season, is the gulf Postecoglou has to bridge.
Postecoglou has always appreciated the importance of derby matches. Code Sports writer Adam Peacock knows Postecoglou well, having covered him extensively, and explains how those South Melbourne games with his dad shaped how he views derby matches.
“How he presents himself, if not as a fan, then as someone who understands their perspective, is borne out of those days,” Peacock says. “He’s never forgotten it. His foundations of what football means to him were formed right next to his old man. He’ll tap into that this week to appreciate what this game means to Spurs fans.”
As Brisbane Roar coach, Postecoglou speaks with Issey Nakajima-Farran during an A-League match in 2012 (Matt Roberts/Getty Images)
In those early days, South Melbourne’s local rivals were Heidelberg United (another club founded by Greek immigrants) and Footscray JUST, the team of the Yugoslavian (now Serbian) immigrant population. Once Postecoglou began playing for and then managing South Melbourne in the 1980s and 1990s, one of their biggest rivals was the Melbourne Knights — the team of the Croatian diaspora that, for a couple of years, included Mark Viduka.
“They were big games,” Peacock says. “They didn’t have the size of the crowds he’s used to, but if you ask Ange, he’d say those games had a fair bit riding on them. And as manager, he would have had a whole heap of fans at South Melbourne saying, ‘You realise you can’t lose this game’.”
After his first job in management with South Melbourne, which started when he was barely out of his thirties, Postecoglou’s next role in Australian club football was with Brisbane Roar. Gold Coast United were their main rivals, but it wasn’t a matchup that had major national significance.
When he left Brisbane for Melbourne Victory in 2012, Postecoglou’s first game was against their rivals Melbourne Heart (whose chief executive at the time was Tottenham’s new director of football Scott Munn, and who have since been rebranded Melbourne City as part of the City Football Group). It’s one of the big rivalries in Australian football and Postecoglou lost that first game 2-1 in front of more than 42,000 supporters.
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But Victory enacted their revenge by beating their rivals the subsequent two times they played each other that season. The second of which, a 2-1 win in February 2013, was a thrilling display and an encapsulation of Postecoglou’s ideas.
And he was happy to allow supporters to revel in these kind of wins. His rhetoric was similar to his words on Saturday after the win over Sheffield United: “Let them go and enjoy it. My role is not to burst people’s bubbles. Let them get excited, let them get ahead of themselves. That’s the beauty of being a supporter.”
Looking back on Postecoglou’s time in domestic Australian football, Peacock says: “Before the derby matches, Postecoglou was the same. He’d say, ‘Let the supporters get excited and carried away’. He’ll play on that narrative this week I’m sure because it’s very real. It’s how he approaches pressure, which is to say: ‘It’s there, it’s very present. Don’t try and pretend it’s not’.”
As for his tactical approach, Postecoglou never made more than small tweaks for the Melbourne derbies.
“The famous Ange line down here that’s always quoted is, ‘My Plan B is to do Plan A better’,” Peacock says. “Ange won’t be looking at Arsenal and saying we need to set up more defensively. There’ll be little tactical tweaks about movements, but there won’t be a mindset switch in any way.”
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That commitment to staying true to his system even, or especially, in big derby matches carried on in Japan. The earlier example of him continuing to attack even after his goalkeeper had been sent off against Kawasaki Frontale is the most salient example.
“To Ange, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 men and we’re losing and it’s a big derby against a team chasing the title, we’re still going to do it our way,” says commentator Tsuneyuki Shimoda, who covered that game.
Wataru Funaki, a freelance journalist who covers Yokohama F Marinos, adds: “Ange doesn’t like to prepare something special for specific teams, so don’t expect anything special on Sunday. His mindset is that the most difficult thing is to play your normal way even if it’s a really big occasion.
“A lot of Asian managers, and especially Australian people, were really into Ange and believed in his philosophy and strategy. He’s like a charismatic religious leader. It’s like he became an Asian cult hero.”
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Postecoglou left Japan to manage Celtic in 2021 and the sense from those in Scotland was that he appreciated the significance of the Old Firm derby straight away.
Before his first game against Rangers, Postecoglou eschewed cliches about it being just another match and spoke honestly and straightforwardly about its importance.
“As a manager, sometimes you say, ‘It’s just another game’… well, this is not, because of what it means, particularly to our supporters, and what it means to this football club,” he said.
The emphasis was always on embracing the pressure.
Celtic lost that first derby 1-0 but Postecoglou once again showed he wouldn’t be cowed. Rangers had gone unbeaten when winning the title the previous season and had dominated the derby in recent years, winning five and drawing one of the previous six. Postecoglou, though, had Celtic play on the front foot and the defeat came despite having 66 per cent of the ball and creating the better chances.
Postecoglou celebrates with striker Erik against Kawasaki Frontale (Masashi Hara/Getty Images)
By the time the two sides met again the following February, Celtic dismantled their rivals 3-0. After the game, Postecoglou tapped into those early experiences he had as a child in Melbourne watching derby games: “I said to the players that we had 60,000 in tonight and I’m sure a lot of them walked in with some problems in their life. For these 95 minutes, we made them forget that and feel good — that’s something special.”
However, the next Old Firm derby, a couple of months later at Ibrox, was a demonstration that Postecoglou, for all his idealism, could be pragmatic. Celtic went behind early to a Rangers team headed for the Europa League final but came back to lead 2-1 just before half-time. In the second half, they were forced to defend resolutely, grinding out a win that was a crucial step towards regaining the Scottish title.
“That game was a bit ‘backs to the wall, defending your box’, especially in the second half,” says Hamish Carton, a Celtic podcaster and author of Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic. “So he can do that. Some of his criticisms early on were that there was only one plan, which was to attack, and that would be his undoing. But there definitely were occasions when Celtic had to be resolute. In fact, for both derbies at Hampden Park last season (one-goal wins for Celtic in the League Cup final and Scottish Cup semi-final), they were really holding on for the last 25 minutes and had to be really strong defensively.”
Those close games, coupled with a 3-0 defeat in a dead rubber in May, gave some at Rangers the feeling they were starting to wrestle back a bit of the initiative in the Old Firm games.
Postecolgu celebrates winning the Scottish Cup against Rangers (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
But even if that was the case, it came after some bruising defeats. A 4-0 defeat in September 2022 was held up as the high point for Celtic’s “We never stop” mantra under Postecoglou. Rangers were in the game but a quick throw-in and similarly quick free kick helped Celtic to a 2-0 lead after barely more than half an hour. It was the perfect example of how to execute what made them such a special team and “not let the chaos derail what we’re all about”.
Postecoglou was then asked about the challenge of keeping his and the team’s emotions in check before the League Cup final a few months later in February 2023.
“I am the manager,” he said. “I am not a fan. Our supporters don’t expect me to have the same emotion going into a big game like this. They don’t want me to be nervous or anxious or angry or whatever it is they feel at a particular time. They want me to be under control and make sure I am preparing the team. All the boys will have their emotions heightened, but within that context, we have still got to play our football. Ultimately, if we are going to be successful, that’s what we need to do.”
After winning that final 2-1, Postecoglou gave an insight into why he relishes derby matches so much and why it’s not because of any extra needle they bring. “I get so much more excited by beating teams I think are really good and are managed by managers I respect who are on the top of their game. That is what gets me going.”
How excited he must be, then, by the chance to take on a huge rival who were so impressive last season in finishing second under one of Europe’s most highly rated young managers at a ground that has been such a graveyard for Spurs since their only Premier League win there 13 years ago.
Staying true to their identity, not letting the chaos derail them, and embracing the challenge will be among Postecoglou’s key messages to his players. And so whatever the result on Sunday, don’t expect the team’s approach to change.
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“The famous Ange line down here that’s always quoted is, ‘My Plan B is to do Plan A better’,” Peacock says.
Lo Amo Speroni
Only been in match thread once.
- Aug 9, 2010
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In his presser today 'don't be proud of doing the right thing. Just do it'.
Timbo Tottenham
Well-Known Member
- May 7, 2006
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JUSTINSIGNAL
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Love that
danielneeds
Kick-Ass
- May 5, 2004
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Poch had a similar outlook away against some of the top teams and we took some pastings because of it, but if you're trying to create that mentality of "we wanna dominate the ball, we want to control the game" you can't just shut up shop the first time you face someone decent. The players will lose their conviction in it.
jpascavitz
Well-Known Member
- Aug 8, 2019
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I agree with you and I have similar thoughts. Feeling a lot of nerves. There is a part of me that keeps thinking ah, this could be the game where we're too open and giving up a couple of soft goals leads to a 4 or 5 goal shelling against us. I keep telling myself this:
Even during the last match, yes down 1-0 at my local supporters pub, I was happy. We did enough during the match, and I kept saying to others near me, doesn't it feel good to: 1. look forward to watching us play 2. Feel that the general feel of the supporters were positive throughout and get behind the club.
So taking Ange's presser this morning in stride:
- Yes it's a big rivalry
- Yes they're in a good place
- Yes we've started well
But what would be important to me is that we try to go there and play the way we want to with confidence. That's what I'll judge any performance on for this season. And when I start to focus on that and what we're trying to build, then it just leads to excitement and positivity rather than me sitting there waiting for something to go wrong or any humblings.
mil1lion
This is the place to be
- May 7, 2004
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I'm sure Poch seemed to change our away form a bit with the odd win at Chelsea and Utd (if my memory serves me well). But we still lost a number of the away games against top teams. Emirates, Anfield and Stamford Bridge are still our worst away grounds. It just seems however we play with whatever players we lose too many. At least if we go at them and be brave we can be proud whatever the result. I'm just tired of us buckling under the pressure of their fans actually making a lot of noise for a change. Always seems to be rocking but then so is our place for the return fixture. We need to be at it from the start, those opening minutes will say a lot for me.
tommyt
SC Supporter
- Jul 22, 2005
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Celtic mate sent me that.
glacierSpurs
Well-Known Member
- Sep 28, 2013
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If anyone has seen any link of the interview posted elsewhere that allows viewing out of the UK will be greatly appreciated. I can't get around BBC geographical restriction with my VPN.Too bad it's only available in the UK
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