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B RILLIA NT- ON LIN E SEP TEM B ER 2021
AUSSIE COACHES GIVING GLOBAL FOOTBALL A KICK ✦ In keeping with Brilliant-Online's continual focus on and celebration of all things ‘Aussie Made’, we take a closerlook and profile a couple of football coaches who are making waves globally.
F
ootball, or soccer to use its local colloquialism, may never surpass Aussie staple sports such as AFL, NRL or cricket in popularity terms but there is no denying it has grown exponentially in recent years. This has been evidenced by a number of top-grade players progressing to ply their trade in prestigious and lucrative foreign leagues in the likes of the UK, Europe, Japan and the USA. Progression hasn’t been merely limited to the playing personnel, however, as a number of promising Australian managers and coaches such as Ange Postecoglou, Kevin Muscat and Pete Cklamovski are proving.
The trailblazer Postecoglou unquestionably leads the way and has been very much the trailblazer for aspiring Aussie football coaches
for many years. He managed domestically in Australia and also took charge of the Socceroos, leading them to win their first ever Asian Football Confederation (AFC). He then took up the hotseat at Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan’s J-League and guided the club to their first J-League title in 15 years, becoming the first Australian manager to win a league title in Japan in the process. It was, however, Postecoglou’s next move that truly brought him to the attention of a global audience when, in June this year, the then 55-year-old was appointed manager of Scottish giants Glasgow Celtic, one of the most successful, popular and widely respected professional clubs in global sports with an estimated worldwide fan base of close to 10 million people. Depsite a shaky start, the team is now on a winning run, playing some of the finest football witnessed at the club