Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglu speaks exclusively to FourFourTwo's Adam Clery on his move to North London, how he's revolutionised the club, and his philosophies for life in general.
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00:00Ang, nice to meet you. The first thing I wanted to ask you is not really a week's going by at the
00:18minute without there being some kind of analysis or discussion or examination of Ang Ball as a
00:23concept. Is that something that exists to you? Like is it a definable thing or is it just something
00:28that people say? No, I think there's definitely, I'd like to think there's something there that we
00:34work on on a weekly basis. It's not just random sort of events but at the same time you know it's
00:41what I love about football. It's kind of a, you know, it's got its own life and you know I often
00:48say to the players that you know what we do during the week and the information we give them is kind
00:52of preparing them for an exam but like all exams you don't know what the questions are going to be
00:57you know so a game of football throws up things but you know there is a structure we try and allow
01:03players then to find solutions within that and yeah there are some disciplines that you know we
01:09need to have as a group for the sort of individuals to function within it. When you're coming into a
01:14group obviously there's quite a lot you've got to sort of like get on board with them and you've got
01:17to get them up to speed. What are like the personality traits you look for in players that sort of say to
01:21you straight away this is going to be a good fit for that player I'm going to have a lot of work to do?
01:25Yeah look I mean first things I don't see them as players they're people you know and you know
01:28particularly when you get to this level there are so many you know wonderfully talented footballers
01:35around the world you know it's you know people talk about recruiting you know it's pretty hard
01:40to get it wrong they're all pretty good but it's it's more about them the fit you know do they fit
01:44A into the football we want to play and B are they the kind of personality character and I think
01:49that's a big one for me because the way we play you know you need to have a certain mindset as an
01:55individual as a person you know to to be brave to to want to sort of challenge yourself on a daily
02:01basis and you know that's why you know before we sign anyone I kind of always have a little bit of a
02:07you know a chat to the the player just to get a feel for the kind of person they are and not
02:12they're not pass judgment on them just think you know do they really understand what's their
02:17motivation for coming to us and I think it's an important part of what we do you were left back
02:23I'm right in saying how would you have found playing in the kind of football you like to
02:27coach would you enjoyed it I would enjoy the training because you know I hated running mate
02:33you know which is not great for a footballer don't look at me now I was a decent runner I was
02:38I was in decent shape I was a fullback you know that loved to get forward but I could never
02:43understand why we used to run at training without the ball just run for kilometres and kilometres and
02:47I hated it you know and I've kind of I've taken that into my sort of coaching philosophy that you
02:52know everything we do at training it's going to be around the way we want to play our football and
02:56so I would have enjoyed training but fair to say as an inverted fullback I'd be lacking a fair bit of
03:03the qualities needed I probably would have ruled myself out. Just to flip that question on its head then if
03:08you were given Ange Postacoglu the player as a coach now what would you have made of him?
03:11He doesn't like running enough. No I enjoyed running in the game I just didn't enjoy running
03:16sort of for no reason you know and and I still do it today like all my teams you know you see the way
03:23we play it's high energy high tempo we want to press and and that means a lot of running and that
03:27means you've got to be really fit so we work hard at training but all of it is with the motivation of
03:33playing our football so it's with there's a reason we do it you know and I come from an era where we
03:39didn't question those things you know if somebody said to you look train today's a 10k run well we
03:43just go off and run you know I mean some of my coaches would have loved seeing all these woods
03:48and fields and just tell us to run until they can't see us anymore but you know that that's that
03:53wasn't the point for me and you know that's why I've tried to take into my sort of coachings and
03:59management style is to give people a reason to to do what I want them to do I'm going to
04:05apologize in advance for the pronunciation here but I was reading that there is a there's a Greek
04:09sort of term katibala is that right yeah that was wrong yeah no no no it's close it's good it's it's
04:16what my father used to tell me all the time right katibala which means that's close yeah you're close
04:21not bad it just means keep the ball on the deck you know keep the ball on the ground you know he just
04:25he just said to you know that was his philosophy around football was that if the ball's on the
04:30grass that's when the magic happens you know why you've got to kick it long and you know put the
04:35ball in the air and you know that was a constantly a phrase he'd tell me even you know when I'd already
04:42sort of established myself as a manager that's the only piece of advice he'd constantly give me
04:46was it sort of like does it go sort of beyond being a football mentality because I've read somewhere
04:50that it's actually got like a slightly deeper meaning to it like it's a good way of sort of
04:53approaching like just they try and keep it simple and do your best work yeah I think so I mean I've
04:59football's kind of been the conduit to everything meaningful in my life and all my relationships
05:05have stemmed from the game I obviously my career is in sort of entwined with the game and I do I use
05:12it as a metaphor for life you know we we we train every day as if we feel lucky we're doing what we're
05:18doing and I treat life the same way I don't take it for granted you know I want to try and you know
05:24achieve you know things that haven't been achieved before in my professional life and I want to take
05:29that into my personal life and try and live every day to its fullest in my family and so there is for
05:35me there is a synergy there and I think that helps because ultimately you know when I talk to a group of
05:41players wherever I've been I think the one thing they come away from is that what I say I mean you
05:48know it's me it's it's genuine it's I'm not saying it just to get a reaction or because I've heard
05:53somebody else say it you know when I talk to them I talk to them you know from deep inside me so they
06:00know that that's that's me saying those words you're saying before that you want to achieve something for
06:05yourself for your family do you feel like you're in the right place now to go in to go and do all that
06:09is this the club where you can achieve the things you want to achieve? I think I've done it my whole
06:12career mate you know I've never felt the need to sort of validate it because I hadn't done it at a
06:18level people think you need to do it you know all the football clubs I've been at I can comfortably
06:24say you know if I go back there I'll be welcome back because I've made an impact and this is another
06:29opportunity to do that you know again obviously one of the biggest clubs in the world in the major
06:35competition in the world so I get that you know there's more of an emphasis around it but you know
06:40everywhere I've been I've tried to do the same thing is you know leave a mark and you know so far
06:46wherever I've been I've done that. Like it's been difficult it has been different to settle in in this job as it has been to others or have you done largely the same things?
06:52No it's pretty much the same mate it's I mean every club that I've been has kind of been a different challenge
06:57don't get me wrong but the way I got about it is is pretty much the same is you know to to come in and
07:03and you know as quickly as possible try and gain the trust of all all the people involved you know
07:10players staff the supporters you know everyone involved the football club you know how quickly
07:15can I get them to believe in me because that's where it kind of begins and ends because you have
07:20all the knowledge in the world but if people don't really resonate or believe in you mate it's it's a lost cause so
07:26you know everywhere I've gone that's that's always been my major sort of
07:31priority and focus at the beginning is you know what get people to believe in me and then the rest
07:38will come. How have you found that challenge of getting them to believe in you with this group in
07:41particular have they been easy to work with? Not dissimilar to in the past because again there's been a kind of
07:47you know consistent pattern in that I've always gone into clubs after you know some some pretty disappointing times
07:55which and for the most part people are looking for something in that moment it's about sort of
08:02me trying to you know whatever sort of dark cloud may be over the place to try and lift that and
08:08and it's been no different here yeah the players have been outstanding the staff have been brilliant I
08:14mean obviously brought new staff in as well which has helped I think because you do you do have to change
08:18things you just can't go in even though it's you know pretty much going on my own is to still bring
08:23some new faces into the environment and you know everyone the club's been great just sort of in at
08:29least having an open mind to listen that's all you can ask for you can't just expect people to follow
08:34you from the first day when you say what you want to do if you're prepared to listen then you know you've
08:40got a sort of a starting point for everything you want to do. Final question then how far do you think this
08:44group can go? Obviously it's early days but the start has been really good.
08:48Who knows mate why would I bother putting a limit on it you know like that's just you know again
08:53when I started 26 years ago if somebody said to you you know even yourself you probably were
09:00five at the time but anyway somebody a bit older you know this bloke's going to end up managing one of
09:05the biggest clubs in the world after managing one of the most famous clubs in the world and is going to
09:09have all this success you put a sitting there out that that ain't going to happen you know that's a
09:13Hollywood script so I've kind of learnt in my life not to put a limit on where I'm going to end up
09:18I'm not going to put a limit on what this football club can do.
09:21Well thank you so much for ball parking me around 30.
09:23Good man, thank you mate.
09:24Thanks very much.
09:25That's alright.