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The English football press doesn’t rate Ange and will never accept him.

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Image for The English football press doesn’t rate Ange and will never accept him.

During his time in Scotland, Ange Postecoglou frequently clashed with the media.

I think he realised early on that some of them held him in contempt, and he responded by holding them in the same regard. He must have thought it was driven by misplaced egotism and snobbery towards the part of the world he came from.

To an extent, that was true.

But a larger factor was simply the club he was managing.

Had he gone to Ibrox, the treatment would have been very different, or at least not as severe. The early headlines predicting he’d be out of a job by October were pure wishful thinking from certain journalists. They saw Celtic as being in crisis and wanted it to deepen.

Their goal seemed to be to undermine him at every turn.

I remember attending his first fan media conference where Dave Faulds from The Celtic Star made a speech instead of asking a question. His comments were criticised by many, including some of our own support, but most notably by the mainstream press.

Yet, I agreed with every word. Not only that, I felt it was something that needed to be said, and I was glad someone did. “We are your only friends,” he was told that day, and Ange didn’t take long to realise that was the honest truth.

Some of the headlines he faced early on were downright shocking. One from Keevins suggested his first name meant “Absolutely Not Good Enough.” Seeing Ange completely turn that narrative on its head gave immense satisfaction, I’m sure to all of us.

As his first season progressed and the football improved, I wouldn’t say Ange won the media over, but he certainly silenced them. He embarrassed them. By his second season, when he was in full command, he made them eat their words time and time again. I’m sure he never expected to encounter anything like that again in his career.

That’s where his blind spot is, though, because of course he was going to face similar challenges in England.

If he thought the Scottish media was arrogant and dismissive, he should have been better prepared for what awaited him south of the border. The English media, if they were unimpressed by his Australian and Japanese titles, certainly weren’t going to be wowed by his five Scottish trophies out of six.

His recent comments about the arrogance of the English media could only have come from someone unfamiliar with their long-standing attitude. I remember Jose Mourinho being asked if he thought he was ready for the Premier League.

This was a man who had won the Champions League with Porto, and even he couldn’t believe the question. The English media have no respect for achievements that don’t happen on their doorstep, in their little corner of the world.

It was inevitable that Ange would be underestimated by them.

His success in three different countries didn’t count for much in their eyes because none of those were in a “major” league. And even if he’d won something in one of those leagues, they’d still have found ways to downplay it. Bundesliga titles, Serie A successes, even Ligue 1 victories – unless it’s PSG – don’t hold the same weight. They see English football as the centre of the universe, and only La Liga comes close in their view.

Anyone familiar with the English media could have warned him.

To them, a manager finishing in a Champions League qualifying spot in the Premier League ranks higher than winning a European trophy elsewhere. No one has truly “proven” themselves until they’ve done it in England, and if you start badly, they’ve already written you off.

The lure of the Premier League is obvious – the money, the profile, the chance to compete against the so-called best.

But much of it is an illusion.

Only a handful of clubs have a real shot at winning trophies, and managers there must endure an intolerable press, which spent this week licking its wounds over having a German in charge of their national team – an indignity they feel they should never have to suffer.

The treatment of Ange has been appalling, and he’s right to be angry.

But he shouldn’t be surprised. He should have anticipated this. He should have known what he was walking into.

I understand why he took the job.

Unlike some, I don’t think it was all about the money.

Ange sees himself as a pioneer, the first man on the beach. He’s the first Australian coach to crack Europe by landing a Premier League role, and a big part of his decision was to establish himself as a trailblazer for others to follow.

I respect and fully understand that goal.

But to succeed in that mission, everything had to go perfectly.

He needed the right club, the right decisions, and to blow everyone away. Had he taken on a club like Brighton, where there were no unrealistic expectations, he’d be hailed across the media right now. But by taking on a major club like Spurs, from his background and starting position, many of the English press saw it as heresy.

They view him as an interloper, and they think Spurs’ decision to hire him was madness.

They’re all waiting for him to fail, not out of personal dislike, but because success would shatter their worldview.

They admire his style of football, but they also view it as too idealistic for the so-called real world.

I sympathise because when Ange first arrived at Celtic, I had my doubts.

Before I’d heard him speak, read his book, or watched the documentaries about him, I thought, like many others, that his appointment could be a disaster. My friend told me that if Ange succeeded, it would mean everything we thought we knew about football was wrong.

Well, it turned out we didn’t know enough about the man.

That changed quickly, and we soon realised he was an impressive individual capable of great things. From that moment, every one of us was behind him completely. While we want every Celtic manager to succeed, I think the type of man he is created a special willingness to give him our full support.

But down in England, they don’t believe they have anything to learn.

They cover the most lauded, cash-rich league in the world, and they feel that makes them special. Many of them don’t realise that this is down to accidents of geography and history. Their league is rich because of an arrogant Australian media mogul, not because the English game is inherently exceptional.

The fact they’ve had to appoint a German as national coach reveals more than they’d like to admit. It highlights the lack of homegrown managerial talent. But they don’t question that. They don’t even acknowledge that most of the best players in that league developed abroad under continental coaching.

In their minds, English football is exceptional because it’s rich, and the idea that a Greek-Australian coach who’s won titles in Australia, Japan, and Scotland belongs at the top level is fanciful. It was always fanciful. As noble as Ange’s intentions were, his hopes of being accepted and respected were wildly unrealistic.

It’s taken him longer than it should have to realise this.

He had the Scottish media figured out after one press conference.

But the condescension from the English media has been there since day one, in every press conference and every article. They don’t care what he’s won elsewhere or that he was an international manager. To them, he’s a strange guy from the other side of the world with lofty ideas, and they were never going to accept him.

They started writing his downfall before he’d even begun.

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4 comments

  • PortoJoe says:

    Very true James. Last English manager to win the top division was Howard Wilkinson in 1992 – that being Division 1 of course… Steve McLaren won the League Cup in 2004 and Harry Redknapp the FA Cup in 2008. And that’s the sum total of English manager success in England in the last 33 years.
    Maybe as Celtic fans people could point the finger at our lack of Scottish managers in the last 20 years (only GS for three seasons). But in a wider context Callum Davidson won more in the last 5 years than all the English managers combined over the past 20!

    • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

      Interesting point Porto Joe – And a really sobering one for The English as well !

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    Fuck The English Media for dismissing Ange for sure…

    But they’re still a GAZILLION times more professional than The Scummy’s of The Scummy Scottish Football Media so they are !

  • Brattbakk says:

    I really hope Ange wins a trophy this year but he’s at the club that Mourinho, Conte weren’t good enough for. As long as he wins at Ibrox I’ll be happy, can’t wait for that game. I wish he wouldn’t do the punditry though, he can do that after he’s done at Spurs. I predict he’ll win the Europa league this season.

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