Ange Postecoglou, who is the coach close to Tottenham- Corriere.it

After losing 14 league games and finding himself out of Europe in a way he hasn’t experienced since 2010, the Tottenham he found himself leafing through a daisy with illustrious petals: who to entrust the bench to after the huge investments made with Mourinho and Conte? Luis Enrique, Nagelsmann, Zidane… no, the music has changed. From now on, enough with the big (and expensive) names. So much so that the president Daniel Levy, an English billionaire who lives nine months a year aboard his super yacht in the Bahamas, has chosen Ange Postecoglou, 57-year-old Australian of Greek origin as well as a former refugee who – until recently – did not know anyone in Europe. Then, this season, he won everything in Scotland with the Celtica treble which earned him the landing in the Premier League: My father dreamed of me coming to Europe. He wanted to get up in the middle of the night in Australia and look at his sonhe told SkySports.

The escape from Greece of the dictators

Dad is gone but he will be proud of his son, who will soon be the protagonist in the most powerful championship in the world. When he was just 5 years old he loaded him with his mother and sister on a ship bound for Melbourne. His business was failing and in Greece there was the Giunta, i.e. the dictatorship of the fascist-inspired colonels who would govern the country from 1967 to 1974 amidst arrests, deportations of opponents and the total absence of political and civil liberties. Different language, no guarantee of housing or employment. Only one ticket in hand: My parents worked day and night. There is a wrong concept of immigration. When I hear people say: “They emigrate for a better life”, I get angry. People go to another country not for themselves but to provide opportunities for the generation to come. The only certainty Ange Postecoglou finds in footballis his father’s great passion, even though as a boy he fell in love with football, the national sport: a way to integrate, to no longer be seen only as the foreigner with a long surname.

Postecoglou was a reliable and tenacious defender. He played nearly 200 games in the National Soccer League with the South Melbourne, a club founded by Greek immigrants and quickly became a cornerstone for the local community. He won, but as a manager who turned football upside down in Australia. In 2000 he led South Melbourne to the Club World Cup in Brazil. His Brisbane Roar, for an innovative and possession-based game, was nicknamed Roarcelona. With the Australian national team he played in a World Cup and won an Asian Cup. In Japan he led the Yokohama F. Marinos to a title that had been missing for 15 years.

My father always told me, “Well, great, but you can do better”. In the last conversation I had with him before he died, I was quite lucky. In Japan my team had won 7-2, he couldn’t have said anything. That was probably the only time he said he was really proud of me and what I had achieved. But to be honest, I wish he was still here to tell me that I’m not doing enough and that I can be better than I am now. Well, if he also wins against Tottenham – the losers, i.e. the losers of the Premier League — doing better would be impossible.