TO DARE IS TO DO

What is “Angeball”?

Ask Postecoglou, though it is not a word he chose – “Good question. I’ve tried to define it… it’s football that I would want to watch. When I was growing up, I loved watching teams who were exciting. I watched the players who were exciting. I loved teams to score goals.”

In Latin, the Tottenham Hotspur motto is Audere est Facere – “To Dare is To Do,” a perfect fit for the type of football that Postecoglou brought to North London’s Spurs.

On 6 June 2023 Postecoglou took charge of one of the most famous football clubs in the world, the first Australian to take a top job in the most prestigious football competition, the England Premier League.

Ever since as a five-year-old in 1970 when he arrived in Australia from Greece with his family, football (soccer) has been at the centre of his life.

In Australia, Postecoglou played and coached at the highest level.

But his destiny was coaching, right from the tender age of 12 when he mapped out a championship campaign for his high school team in Prahan.

In the clubrooms of Melbourne suburban club

Nunawading FC, Postecoglou’s image is featured in a mural alongside those of two greats in world football, Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola.

The mural was painted in 2022 and Postecoglou, then in charge of Celtic in Scotland, already was tipped for greatness by those who knew him. Was the writing on the wall then that he would find himself in charge some day of one of the “Big Six” in the EPL?

Spaniard Pep Guardiola is a manager and former player,

in charge of English Premier League champions Manchester City. He was a defensive midfielder who usually played in

a deep playmaker’s role. As a manager, his tactics include playing out from the back, ball retention, width, creativity and pressing – things he learned from his one-time coach Johan Cruyff. Cruyff was a Dutch footballer and coach who revolutionised the game with the idea of “total football,” a fluid style of play allowing any player to push forward as another slotted in to cover for him.

Today’s Angeball could well be based on those styles, but at “next level.”

It would be a stretch to say Postecoglou’s methods replicate exactly those of Guardiola and Cruyff, but just as their teams were great entertainers, the same is being said of Postecoglou’s Spurs who grabbed the attention of fans and pundits alike in season 2023-24.

What was widely thought to be a season of transition and rebuilding became something more promising; a possible Top 5 or 7 finish and a return to European football were real possibilities as the season progressed.

The diehard COYS (Come On You Spurs) supporters were enthusiastic about Angeball. Showbiz identities Henry Winkler, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Robbie Williams and Dave Clark were on board, too.

Other EPL coaches were impressed; Guardiola at Manchester City and Arteta at Arsenal praised the Spurs approach.

Other football codes also wanted to learn about Angeball; coaches from Australian NRL and AFL clubs and even a coach from America’s NFL all paid a visit to Tottenham Hotspur. They left impressed.

Back in Australia, those who knew Postecoglou well were not surprised at all by his appearance in the top-flight of world football.

He had an enviable career, even before he got off to a flying start as head coach/manager at Tottenham Hotspur in the EPL in 2023.

His first coaching gig was at South Melbourne, Australia, which hadn’t won a league title in seven years. He guided the team to consecutive National Soccer League (NSL) titles in 1997-98, ending a seven-year drought, and again in 1998-99 as well as winning the 1999 Oceania Club Championship.

Later at Brisbane in Australia’s top-flight A-League, in which the Roar had never won a title, Postecoglou won three in succession that included a record 36-matches unbeaten run from September 2010 to November 2011.

As Australian coach, his team won an Asian Cup, the country’s first – and still only – significant international trophy, in 2015. He qualified the Socceroos for the 2018 World Cup.

Postecoglou then went to Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan which hadn’t won anything significant in 15 years. He won the J-League championship in 2019.

Next port of call, Scotland where he took Celtic to the Scottish Premiership after also winning the Scottish League Cup in his first year there. He repeated the double in his second year then added the Scottish Cup to his resume in his last match in charge. His record there from 2021-23 included a 38-match unbeaten Scottish Premiership run for a total of five trophies during his tenure.

The elite 20-team EPL beckoned. Specifically, Tottenham Hotspur.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Tottenham Hotspur was a broken team when Postecoglou arrived in June 2023. It was bad enough that the underachieving Spurs, a.k.a. the Lilywhites (for their main-strip colour), had finished eighth. But that also cost them the chance of putting any European football in their diary for the new season.

In 2023, dreams of a return to Europe may have been secondary to many fans, but the club’s history there was not forgotten. Spurs were the first team to win the UEFA Cup (1971) and were the first British team to win a major European trophy, the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1963.

To be missing from all European competition in 2023-24 was a sad indictment of the events of season 2022-23; for the first time since 2009-10, Tottenham Hotspur was not competing in any European competition.

Spurs had qualified for UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) competitions every season from 2010 to 2022.

High on priorities for Europe was the Champions League.

That would need a Top-4 EPL finish. Even getting into the second or third tier European play-offs would bring some cheer to the club.

Postecoglou’s take on European football: “Not being part of it this year has hurt us because it gives you a chance to develop your squad even quicker with the experiences they have and the ability to give more game time to your squad, so it’s hurt us this year.”

If there was to be an upside in missing out on European competition it was that the stress (injury risk) on players turning out mid-week as well as weekends was greatly reduced.

Could Postecoglou add his name to the Who’s Who of great Premier League coaches? Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Pepe Guardiola, Sam Allardyce, Arsene Wagner, Mark Hughes, Harry Redknapp, Roy Hodgson?

The Australian started work on 1 July 2023. The first round of the EPL season was on 11 August and he didn’t really know what his team on the pitch would look like.

By the time he arrived at North London (N17), he had coached for more than 27 years at elite level in 570 matches, from Australia to Scotland via Greece and Japan. In those 570 matches his teams scored 701 goals at an average of 1.22 per match.

By February 2024, barely six months after he started work in the English Premier League, fans of Postecoglou’s Spurs were beginning to dream of what could be, come season’s end in May 2024. They were comfortably inside the top 5 and within reach of top spot.

For Australian fans of Postecoglou and Tottenham Hotspur there was great hope that reports of a “coming home” visit after the end of the Premier League season in May 2024 would become reality. The plan was for Postecoglou’s Spurs to play the A-Leagues All Stars in a “friendly” at Melbourne’s iconic MCG.

A championship title in Postecoglou’s first year at the helm of Spurs would have been extraordinarily optimistic. There were even doubters that Angeball was sustainable, particularly when his squad became decimated by injury and international duty.

But Angeball continued to thrive. Players warmed to the system. Those who seemed to be going nowhere under previous set-ups were now finding their feet. Others were sent out to other clubs to get match experience instead of warming the Spurs bench. It was about getting them ready for the future.

Postecoglou didn’t promise miracles in year one, though many fans thought they were witnessing one when Spurs appeared on the top of the ladder at one point in 2023.

It was dreamtime alright.

One football fan set others straight in a Spurs social media post in December: “Even with the appointment of Big Ange, did the fans seriously think he was some sort of miracle worker? Did you honestly believe that he would turn a s... show of a squad into PL Champions or Cup Winners within a couple of months? If you did, you really are deluded!”

And another social media home-truth: “Ange was always going to need 2 or 3 transfer windows to get the team the way he wants it. He has his ideas on how to play the game, and being negative or defensive just isn’t in his mantra… have a bit of faith and… be realistic! It was always going to be a long-term project while Ange gets all his pieces in to place!”