The Howie Games<\/a>podcast, the 61-year old, who had seen stints at Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest end in acrimonious circumstances in the last 18 months, said the chance to manage the final years of Ronaldo\u2019s celebrated career was too tempting to pass up.<\/p>\n\u201cThe fact I\u2019m going to share a dressing room with one of the greats, I make no sort of secrets about it \u2013 it was one of the enticements of the job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I reflect on my career, what stands out for me is that I\u2019ve been unbelievably blessed in being part of other people\u2019s journeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Socceroos, I worked with arguably our greatest ever player in Timmy Cahill, so I\u2019m a small part of his story. <\/p>\n
\u201cSonny (South Korea and former Spurs star Son Heung-min), the greatest ever Korean player, I\u2019m a small part of his story.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, there\u2019s no doubt, Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s here, you kind of go \u2018I can become a small part of his story as well\u2019. <\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo. (Photo by Abdullah Ahmed\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd not from a selfish point of view, but for my own kind of life\u2019s journey, of everything I wanted to do since I was a kid \u2026 that was part of the attraction.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot that they\u2019ll tell my story alongside it, but I can tell that story, and that was a part of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The interview was conducted in the early stages of Postecoglou\u2019s time at Al-Nassr, before his first competitive game at the helm and after Ronaldo bowed out of international football at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The pair haven\u2019t always seen eye to eye in his first months at the helm, with Postecoglou first leaving him out of his first two games before benching him at half time of a clash with Al-Ettifaq, which Al-Nassr went on to win 3-2 despite being 2-0 down at the time.<\/p>\n
He revealed he had had \u201chalf a dozen\u201d alternative job offers after being brutally sacked as Nottingham Forest manager in October last year after just 39 days in charge.<\/p>\n
Postecoglou\u2019s winning start has seen him named the Saudi Pro League\u2019s manager of the month, in identical fashion to his spectacular start at Spurs in 2023.<\/p>\n
He became the first ever manager to win the gong in his first two months at the helm after steering Spurs to a table-topping six wins and two draws from his first eight games, before fading late in the 2023\/24 season to finish fifth.<\/p>\n
The Australian was then axed after a disastrous 2024\/25 Premier League season, mere weeks after leading the club to its first silverware in decades with a Europa League triumph.<\/p>\n
Ange Postecoglou. (Photo by Abdullah Ahmed\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Postecoglou revealed the brutal way ex-Spurs boss Daniel Levy summoned him back from a holiday in Greece shortly after their Europa League triumph to tell him his time was up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was coming,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cLiterally the day after (a parade celebrating Spurs\u2019 Europa League win), I went to Greece with my family. I wanted to get away from it all. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd from there it was just waiting for the phone call, I knew it was going to happen. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy agent said \u201cLook, Daniel Levy wants you to come back and have a meeting, he wants to have a chat to you\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI said look, I\u2019ll get on a flight. I came back and he said \u201cDaniel wants to see you\u201d. I said \u201cLook, I don\u2019t really want to see him\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said \u201cWhat\u2019s he going to say to me. I know what he\u2019s delivering\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ange Postecoglou shake hands with ex-Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy following Spurs\u2019 Europa League final win over Manchester United. (Photo by Nick Potts\/PA Images via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s good news, I would have just got on with my holiday. Just finish it off and we\u2019re done. And that\u2019s how it ended. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t a shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
Postecoglou added that it was \u201cdisappointing\u201d not to continue on, saying Spurs players, despite their poor 17th placing in the Premier League, were \u201call in\u201d on his style.<\/p>\n
\u201c I was disappointed, but at the same time, I felt like you know what, we had a moment here that is priceless (the Europa League) and I\u2019m not going to let it tarnish it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The veteran maanger also revealed his decision to make the Europa League his focus over the Premier League, which earned Spurs silverware for the first time in nearly 17 years but resulted in a relegation near-miss, was frowned upon within the club, but he has no regrets.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur league form wasn\u2019t great. I make no apologies for that. I went all in on winning the Europa because I just felt it was too important for the football club,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about winning a trophy, which obviously was the most important thing \u2013 but it gets you into the Champions League, which means Champions League money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat made a lot of people uncomfortable outside the club, certainly made people uncomfortable inside the club. I don\u2019t think they agreed with that strategy and they made it clear they didn\u2019t agree. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnless they removed me, that was going to be the strategy, because I just felt it was the best way forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of knew even when we won it. I told my wife this\u2019ll be the last game. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was convinced they were going to get rid of me now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ange Postecoglou with the UEFA Europa League trophy. (Photo by Ryan Pierse\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
He said he resisted the temptation to \u201chave a crack\u201d at club powerbrokers, both immediately after the triumph and at the parade held to celebrate their return to Tottenham.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat night we had at Bilbao, they were all in that room,\u201d Postecoglou said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a little part of me to go \u201cI should really just go up and have a crack at them now\u201d. I felt like \u201cYou\u2019re enjoying this, but I know what you\u2019re going to do\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had such a great day in the parade, and even my speech that day, part of me wanted to be self-serving and just shove it up a few people who I knew were enjoying the day, but I knew what they were going to do. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I kind of said no, it\u2019s not right for me to spoil the people\u2019s day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ange Postecoglou waves to the fans during the Tottenham Hotspur Europa League trophy parade. (Photo by Harry Murphy\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Following the twin Premier League stints at Spurs and Forest, Postecoglou said the move to a lower-profile league was never an issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say \u201cit\u2019s not in Europe, it\u2019s not a higher profile league\u201d, but I\u2019ve always railed against people who are snobbish about certain leagues and everything,\u201c he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t going to turn around and say \u201cthat\u2019s a backwards step for me\u201d. I never see things that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, is there an opportunity there? Can I make an impact? Would I be excited about the prospect of doing it? <\/p>\n
\u201cIt ticked those boxes for me, because it\u2019s a league that\u2019s obviously invested a lot of money, there\u2019s some top managers here, some top players here. The chance to be a part of that was significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that accepting the Forest job so soon after his Spurs heartbreak had been an unwise move \u2013 that even his wife warned him against.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone around me, including my wife, said don\u2019t do it,\u201d Postecoglou admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ignored all of them and I said \u201cNo, I know the challenge and I love the challenge\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ange Postecoglou lasted just 39 days at Nottingham Forest before being sacked. (Photo by Shaun Botterill\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a club where I could make an impact \u2013 but you know when you don\u2019t fit and I felt that from the first day. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite obvious that this was not the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was probably the worst three hours of my professional life when I got sacked. I paid a penance for that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the wolves circling after a poor start to his Forest tenure, Postecoglou revealed the axe falling immediately after a 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea took him by surprise.<\/p>\n
I literally walked in after the game, went to the coaches\u2019 room, and the sporting directors came in,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t even thinking they were going to sack me, I was thinking about the game \u2013 we weren\u2019t playing too badly, we just needed a goal. <\/p>\n
\u201c(I) get sacked in that room, and I was like, \u201cAlright, I\u2019m out of here\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walk out the door and literally all the media are there. They\u2019ve already been informed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Postecoglou also told Howard the long-standing comparisons to iconic television football coach Ted Lasso irritates him, and that he had never watched the award-winning Apple TV program.<\/p>\n
He said he felt the comparison to the American coach who switched from gridiron to coaching AFC Richmond in a fictional Premier League was demeaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat guy came from a different code \u2026 I\u2019ve come from the same code, do you understand?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s a different country, but football is my game. <\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t come from cricket into football.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat annoys me. And because it annoys me, I didn\u2019t watch it (the series).\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the undefeated four-win start, Al-Nassr sit second on the Pro League table on goal difference to rivals Al-Hilal, who signed Arsenal star Gabriel Martinelli on a record $112 million transfer fee.<\/p>\n
Their next match, against Al-Ittihad, is on Sunday morning (AEST).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ange Postecoglou has opened up on what motivated him to move to Saudi Arabia and coach football icon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-880368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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