ANGE POSTECOGLOU has emerged as the new frontrunner for the Celtic job.
Yesterday, Celtic confirmed in a statement that talks with Eddie Howe had broken down. The club had previously been confident that the ex-Bournemouth manager would succeed Neil Lennon at Parkhead.
READ MORE: Inside the collapse of Eddie Howe to Celtic - how and why the deal fell flat
However, the move fell through for reasons outwith the control of Howe or Celtic according to the club.
Now, 55-year-old Postecoglou has emerged as several bookies’ favourites for the role in Glasgow’s East End.
So, who is he? What is his managerial experience? And what style of football will he likely bring to Scotland if appointed?
Postecoglou was born in Greece but emigrated to Australia at an early age.
A defender who spent the entirety of his career Australia with South Melbourne, he won two National Soccer League titles with the club.
Following retirement, Postecoglou became manager of South Melbourne where he again won the league twice. That was proceeded by time managing youth sides of the Australian National team, prior to an unsuccessful stint at Greek outfit Panachaiki.
Postecoglou returned to the Southern Hemisphere and enjoyed a successful stint with Brisbane Roar, where he led the club to back-to-back titles. His time with with Melbourne Victory was less successful, but proceeded by four years in charge of the national team.
That stint ended in 2017. He has since been in charge of Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan and managed them to the J-League title in 2019.
READ MORE: Ex-Parkhead man hails Celtic-linked Ange Postecoglou as 'unbelievable coach'
Speaking on the Fox Football Podcast, he outlined what style of football he tries to implement at his clubs.
For Postecoglou, offensive football is a fundamental part of how his teams play. He acknowledges systems are always evolving, but the best teams are the ones who think about how they can hurt the opposition before they consider how the opposition may hurt them.
"From my perspective, there are just certain fundamentals in the teams that I coach that have to be there, and most of it centres around the ball,” he said.
"Making sure that my team has the ball, that my team is the one trying to score goals, my team's the one playing in the opposition half.
"How you get to that point varies at different times. Systems are constantly changing and evolving.
"The basic core of it is that I think the most successful teams in the world tend to be the ones who are set up to win games of football rather than stop the opposition.
"They are the teams that I'm attracted to, they are the teams I like watching and they are the teams I like producing."
Jackson Irvine, who spent last season with Hibs and came through the youth ranks at Celtic, worked with Postecoglou when he was the manager of Australia.
He remembers the intensity Postecoglou demanded from the Socceroos, even when up against the notoriously well-drilled pressing machine that was Marcelo Bielsa's Chile side.
He told Open Goal: “Ange Postecoglou was an amazing, unbelievable coach. He’s in Japan now, he’s a coach I would love to see come and manage in Europe, I think he’d do really, really well.
“He ended up falling out, it became a bit of a mess at the end but as a coach he was top notch.
READ MORE: Celtic manager latest as shock contender now odds-on for Parkhead role
“The way he was asking us to play was hectic. The year before the World Cup was the Confederations Cup. We’d [Australia] won the Asian Cup before so we didn’t play that. We played Germany, Cameroon and Chile at the Confeds.
.@jacksonirvine_ only a couple of weeks ago on working with @CelticFC linked manager Ange Postecoglou... pic.twitter.com/pokqtBfcb6
— Open Goal (@opengoalsport) May 29, 2021
“This was Bielsa’s Chile by the way. We played that man for man style and went toe-to-toe with these teams, it was mental. Then we qualified and he walked away."
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