https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/oct/12/ange-postecoglou-matildas-world-cup-comments-australians-arent-interested

“When you look at what the Matildas did at the World Cup: unbelievable,” he said. “But you still won’t see an influx of resources to the game. You won’t, I guarantee it.”

“I just don’t think the nation as a whole has that inside them to understand you can make an impact on the world of football, but it requires a kind of nationalistic approach that I just don’t think Australians at their core are really interested in,” Postecoglou said.
“I just don’t see it,” he told reporters. “I don’t think it registers. You guys are only talking about it because of me.”

The 58-year-old revisited that period this week, saying he had given up the “fight” for Australian football after being “frustrated for so long”.

“One of my major drivers for doing what I did was to do that, to change football in Australia,” he said. “And that’s the reason I left, I felt I hadn’t made an impact at all.”

https://sport.optus.com.au/news/australian-football/os64413/ange-postecoglou-prediction-football-australia-socceroos-exit

“They’ll build stadiums and other codes will use them. I just don’t think the nation as a whole has that inside them to understand you can make an impact on the world of football but it requires a kind of nationalistic approach that I just don’t think Australians – at their core – are really interested in.

“There’s a couple of things. One of them is obviously the sporting landscape, where there’s some pretty strong codes there that have generationally dominated the landscape.

“There’s Aussie Rules, that’s the indigenous sport of Australia. It’s kind of unique to them and they take great pride in protecting as their code. The rugby codes dominate.

“It’s very hard for football to make an impact in that space and I guess then the flipside of that is just how global the sport of football is.

“If I can compare that to a country like Japan, who also have the tyranny of distance and baseball’s pretty strong, they plant a lot of resources into football and you can see that’s making an impact. I don’t see Australia down that road.”

“I don’t. I don’t know and maybe that’s just me, not being cynical, but I gave up that fight,” he explained.

“It’s a much easier space for me to live in because I was so frustrated for so long. It was my biggest frustration. One of my major drivers for doing what I did was to do that – to change football in Australia and that’s the reason I left.

“I felt I hadn’t made an impact at all. That’s easier for me to deal with than to think maybe I still can now with what I’m doing. I just think I’d be disappointed, so I’d prefer to think it’s not going to happen.

“I walked away from a World Cup. We qualified and I walked away. The reason I walked away was I just didn’t enjoy what I was doing.

“It’s not just doing the job and winning games of football, it’s got to be a higher purpose. My higher purpose in Australia was to change the game. I just don’t think that will happen.

“It was the right decision for me (to leave), it was the right decision for where I saw the next stage of my career and if I didn’t make that decision at that time, if I had waited until after the World Cup, I’ve got no doubt I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

Being used to get real Clubs fans to switch to following the A-League was probably the straw

Ange is right of course, you only have to browse football forums such as this one to realise that even ‘so called’ football fans are more interested in tearing the game down than looking at the positives.

What do you mean he coached in the a league? Is this a joke 

Hahahah look at the disgust in his face... hahahahahahaha  Whatever happened to poor little Yoshi? Is he still Melbourne City's #1 ticket holder?

“It was the right decision for me (to leave), it was the right decision for where I saw the next stage of my career and if I didn’t make that decision at that time, if I had waited until after the World Cup, I’ve got no doubt I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”


Also definatley right about this.

Pfft. You left the Socceroos because you struggled to qualify due to a rigid enforcement of ministry philosophy that ignored the players we had, the conditions we played in and the opponents we played. It might work well for a club team with more resources than those around them who can simply replace those who don't match the system, but it doesn't work for national teams who have limited playing stock to choose from.

A lot of what he said was correct and I'm super excited by what he is doing and can't wait to see what he will continue to do, but let's not rewrite history.

He still seems bitter that the socceroos have performed better without him 

He no doubt makes real points about the state of the game here mind you, not much has changed since he departed.
Infact it went worse didn't it.
I still can't forgive him walking out at a massive time leaving our NT and us in that position (thats the captain bailing the sinking ship type of scenario bugga the rest) BUT I also understand when you have lost your desire in your job you just got to leave.
I can only imagine the amount of BS you had to go through and suck it up and yes Kamaryn he was his own worst enemy persisting with that type of play with cattle that just we're not able to meet the vision.
Thats what was killing me watching it was so obvious.
Thank christ for Timmys goal of the tournament for me - the only highlight to remember.
Sure he might be bitter as mentioned I probably would feel the same when you have that much passion.

he admits that if he stayed he would never have got the jobs that came after  His team would have got smashed playing his way at the WC. He knew it.

Well better results anyway.

At this rate Ange might get poached from Spurs to coach a European NT?! Maybe even England some day?! Ange has found where his style of management works

Where?  At club football? He's NT results are not great.

Cahill's goal was the highlight of the 2014 tournament. Ange's tenure saw the 2015 Asian Cup victory. He got it just right for Honduras. 

I think he kept getting things messed up for games against Thailand, Jordan and Syria. Also, I wonder how much the players at the time had to do with it. They were the ones on the pitch and there were some lacklustre times. He seemed to lose the dressing room around mid 2016 with the dire Greece games, the Thailand draw then scraping by in the qualifiers. Chile was a great response with a highly rotated team.

You can understand now why he picked McGree at 17. I felt Risdon was reliable whereas McGowan was scary. 

Remember those press conferences? I liked the asking for justification of his back 3. It just didn't work. He got into a lot of arguments and never explained the reasoning for his calls. Benching Mooy for the Syria home game. Thankfully Honduras away saw Luongo return and calm the game.

The issue I took in hindsight was how Arnold was a protected species at the lowest point in years. No grilling press conferences or hard questions about why the team was incredibly dysfunctional. Thankfully we scraped through and produced some real magic after that but I wouldn't mind knowing how the camps were in those down times. 

Oh I'm sorry, I guess results are just a sideshow compared to possession football 

Camped inside your own half for most of the game is the new Aussie Spirit.  Yay Arnieball.

But if NT coach for top nation like England he will have the quality of players for his style to work well

Shit did we win another Asian Cup or anything really since he left??? Damn I missed it.

Well that's on him and how he set the team up isn't it?

Wanting to play like Spain without the calibre of players we have and hoping they'll play like Spain was delusional.

Isn't a coach's raison de'tre at a tournament to get results?

Arnie had us finish 11th...... thats a .... result.... I guess :)

This was when he was NT coach, nothing to do with the A-League, but still an FA employee

FA used to him to promote the idea that football fans should spend less of their spare time and money on their existing clubs, in favour of the FA's own shitshow

He won the Asian Cup with a rather poor squad. He qualified for the world cup with maybe the worst Australian team in generations. And though the 2014 World Cup didn’t deliver results, Australia did not disgrace itself in a genuine group of death with, again, an extremely poor squad. 

In theory Ange has a point but it’s also quite cynical too.
Also quite click baiting if you read the article too.

Better than 3 games - 0 points - basically the same squad that won the Asian Cup - with the likelihood of another 3 games and 0 points. Let's face it he used the 2014 World Cup as a lead up to the Asian Cup. Any other country would use their confederation tournament as a preparation for the World Cup.

Great club manager and probably in a nation with abundant football talent he would be a great national manager - but you can't play the same way as better nations when they play that way better. 

Haha. 

Aussie football fans flip and flop on that one.  Verbeek- gets points equal to Hiddink with a worse squad against better opposition...Aussie fans :we played dour, he's shit  no Aussie spirit.  Arnold jags two 1-0 results against Denmark and Tunisia camped for most of the game in our own half- Arnie Da Best. Aussie Spirit

yer fair points some of you and above.
Ceiling yet ? as you know we are way way off that point.

Look Ange is Ange just as Arnie is, despite their differences in approach to their player management and tactical appraoch they BOTH have passion for our game to grow and BOTH could/can only do whats made available from their employer and talent pool.
Hard to get anything balanced under our messy and lack of directives by our past to present governing bodies.
Ange tried to play tika taka leaving us exposed Arnoe doing the opposite and both can win over support entirely from us supporters as well.
IMO many still can't accept the real factor effecting us due to our lacking unity in our game's system, the develop levels and supporters might I add.
Both have done what they think is best with what they have available, and as much as the end Qatar result was great we are still way behind imo being a strong NT in Asia let alone WC's.
We now are happy that we qualie for the WC, seriously whilst we keep having this same system,lack of unity thats mostly all we will keep achieving, sure great but whilst we keep having the lack of football played here and hopefully a NSD to come lack of unity and divide between AL NSD NPL will keep delivering the same looking ahead.
Ange's points about will anything change for the better as a whole for the game stands true, even after a successful Matildas WC here.
Its not about a minor improvements to be happy about after all these years we need a massive change in the right direction period to follow the likes of Japan as many agree bravo well done looking ahead 20+ yrs.

Do we dare mention Arnies Asian Cup "results"?

This is total bullshit. Ange coached the worst Socceroos team we've had in 30+ years and still won an Asian cup and qualified us for Russia. Sure, I do think he made a tactical error by changing our formation in the middle of the WC qualifying campaign, but the end result speaks for itself.

Moreover, his overhauling of the NT squad was the catalyst for our improved performance in Qatar. If you look back at the teams he coached, every one of them have had success after he left. Brisbane won another toilet seat, Victory won the treble. Yokohama won the league again. And Celtic continue to dominate. 

H was also the last kick of the game coming off the post from going out in the qualifiers against Syria.  He was too rigid with his vision of the beautiful game without the cattle to bring it to life.  As a manager he's better suited to club than he is to country.