A Lesson to be Learned: Ange Postecoglou wins J-League Title

Ange Postecoglou celebrates winning the J-League title with Yokohama F.Marinos (Image: Herald Sun)

On Saturday, former Socceroos head coach Ange Postecoglou completed the amazing feat of taking the Yokohama F.Marinos to the mountaintop of Japanese football.

The 54-year-old, who also coached the Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory, hasn’t had it all his own way in Yokohama.

After a tough 2018 campaign which saw his side finish 12th, the club backed him in to turn it around this season.

He has delivered in spades and following a comprehensive 3-0 win over FC Tokyo, he took Yokohama to an unlikely fourth J-League title.

It is a great story of redemption and perseverance from a man who has had his fair share of doubters over the years.

Postecoglou was responsible for our 2014 World Cup campaign, our qualification for the 2018 tournament and the infamous 2015 Asian Cup success.

Related Articles: Ange Postecoglou’s trail blazing J-League success finally silences the critics

We, as football fans, can very easily forget the good in which has come from coaches and players alike in their pasts.

Ange was thrown straight out of the frying pan at the Victory and into a white-hot fire as Socceroos coach, tasked with a near impossible feat of qualifying for the round of 16 against Chile, Spain and the Netherlands.

The Dutch were inches away from reaching the Final, falling short in a penalty shootout against eventual runners-up Argentina. Spain were the defending champions at the time and despite not reaching the knockout stage, were still a very formidable team.

Chile, perhaps deemed our easiest opponent at the time, were no slouches either. They defeated Spain 2-0 in the group stage and in the coming years, won back-to-back Copa America titles.

When your ‘easiest’ opponent was capable of outstanding achievements such as that, the job of Australia’s head coach was anything but enviable.

For the most part, he did a fine job making us competitive against some of the best in the world, despite three losses.

His finest hour came during our Asian Cup triumph against South Korea. Being the hosts of the tournament, Australia was expected to perform well and maybe even win the entire competition.

That kind of expectation brings about a lot of pressure. Ange coached his boys to perfection, showing his prowess as a manager and he led the Socceroos to a deserved trophy.

But the following few years began to take its toll on Postecoglou, with his resignation coming only a few weeks after leading the Socceroos to a fourth successive World Cup campaign.

In his press conference, Postecoglou spoke of the pressure that came with being an international coach and how it had “taken a toll both personally and professionally”.

Postecoglou was announced as coach of Yokohama one month later.

He reportedly received offers to coach Greece’s national side but instead opted to extend his contract in Japan, with hopes of surging up the table.

As we now know, he did more than just that.

Following his incredible title-winning season at Yokohama, Postecoglou’s name has been thrown into the hat for managerial opportunities in Europe.

Rumours are circling that he will take a job somewhere in Europe, with some of the biggest teams in the continent reportedly considering him.

All of his success following his departure as Socceroos coach goes to show something.

Ange Postecoglou was extremely underappreciated as head coach of our national team.

He faced enough criticism during his tenure to last a lifetime and it came from all angles.

Former players and fans were consistently on his back when things slightly went awry, with little-to-no margin for error as far as some were concerned.

In his athletesvoice.com.au column back in June of 2018, he spoke of how he wanted more out of us as a footballing nation.

He wasn’t going to settle for the Socceroos forever being, what he described as “battlers”. In his eyes, we weren’t going down without a fight.

This was resembled in the way he coached during the 2014 World Cup.

“Let’s now stand up and show that we could conquer that last bastion of our sport.” His own words.
He also claimed that many of those close to him at the FFA lost faith in him for his aggressive and ‘go down swinging’ style of play, believing this to be the catalyst for his eventual departure.
Now, following his successful ventures elsewhere and our forgetful 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup campaigns, his words need to be heeded now more than ever.
Perhaps he was right on the money, that we often settle for ‘giving it our best’ or ‘being that one step below the best’.
We should all take notes from him because, after all, he could be head coach of a top team in Europe not long from now.

 

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Brazil is coming. But what is the real price of bringing football’s giants to Australia?

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Image Credits: Shutterstock

There is something undeniably exciting about Brazil coming to Australia. The five-time World Cup winners will face the Socceroos twice in Queensland from Friday, with Townsville and Brisbane set to host the blockbuster fixtures.

For Australian football, these are the kind of games that should be anticipated, celebrated and capture the public’s attention. But they also raise questions: how much should Australian football pay to bring the world’s biggest nations here, and when does the bill become too big? 

The cost of bringing the big names

Australia has always paid up to bring big names down under. Last week’s NFL game in Melbourne, at a cost of between $10 and 15 million dollars to the Victorian Government, is just the latest example.

It could cost the same amount to bring Brazil to Queensland. A report in The Sydney Morning Herald last year revealed Brazil was reportedly seeking around $7.5 million per match to play in Australia. The fee is in line with other major international events; Western Australia reportedly faced a bill of around $12 million in taxpayer funding for the recent Perth Italian Football Festival.

I’m worried Football Australia won’t get return on investment to make this particular event worthwhile. The enormous fee to bring Brazil to Australia can’t immediately be justified as an investment in our footballing future. Instead, Football Queensland and the state government could have put these funds into grassroots facilities. Part of Football Queensland’s scrapped state headquarters investment plan was to spend $8.5 million to refurbish fields, lights, drains and irrigation at Mappas and Meakin parks. Instead of these plans to invest in the state’s youth players and academies, money has been spent on two international friendlies.

So ahead of the fixtures, the question remains: will these games inspire the future generation, and will participation grow? The NFL match was impossible to ignore: a sold-out MCG and a live audience of 2.1 million on free-to-air, not even including those watching on ESPN and Netflix. Football Australia is not simply buying 90 minutes of football; it is buying the attention that comes with Brazil. So let’s see if they can maximize returns. 

Ticketing Tells a Story

Ticket sales provide insight into the interest in the fixture. Brisbane has sold much quicker than Townsville, but neither have sold out as yet. The fact these games didn’t immediately sell out may be considered surprising as there is a genuine appetite in Australia for elite international football at the moment, evidenced by SBS’ World Cup viewership numbers of 17.1 million.

Brazil is bringing some of its brightest stars: Vinicius Junior, Raphinha, Bruno Guimaraes, Marquinhos and Endrick are among the headline names in their squad. The star power is there. So why haven’t these matches sold out? There’s a chance it comes down to the competition and the visibility of the event.

The viewing problem

The timing of this fixture could raise eyebrows amongst fans. As much as Australia and Brazil will draw huge crowds, both games fall on either side of the AFL Grand Final. The 2024 AFL Grand Final, which involved Queensland’s Brisbane Lions, drew over 4 million viewers on free-to-air. Brisbane, who have won the last two premierships, will feature once again on Grand Final day. Therefore, fans who could’ve attended may instead be making the trip to Melbourne.

Then comes the strangest part: one of the fixtures Australia will play will not even be available on free-to-air television. The Townsville match will be shown free on Network 10 and 10 Streaming, as well as Paramount+. The Brisbane match, however, will be available exclusively on Paramount+. That creates a disconnect. If governments and football administrators are spending millions to bring a global sporting brand to Australia, why should a large section of the Australian public need a subscription to watch the second match?

The Brisbane game is behind a paywall, limiting the national reach of the event. Reach is surely part of the justification for spending big on Brazil, it’s not just that 50,000 people get to sit inside Suncorp Stadium. It is that millions of Australians get exposed to the spectacle and if that audience is restricted, the value of this fixture is limited.

A solution could be to spend the money on advertising the match to the public to try to generate interest across streaming and free-to-air. With less than a week until the first game I don’t believe the advertising has done enough to generate enough interest to justify a $15 million price tag for the two game series. 

The Brazil friendlies will be spectacular. They should attract big crowds, create memories and give the Socceroos an excellent test against one of football’s most recognisable nations. But for the appropriate return, attention must be measured. Does this fixture carry on the Socceroos hype and keep the eyeballs of the general public on our sport? I’m not convinced. However, if these matches bring new fans to football, strengthen the national team and create lasting investment in the sport, the enormous price tag could still be justified. But if they simply produce two nights of football before the attention disappears, then Australian football has paid a premium for a very expensive show.

The Young Socceroos exposed one of Australian football’s biggest problems

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Image Credit: AFC

Australian football has spent years trying to create a clearer structure for the game.

But one question keeps resurfacing: who is actually responsible when the interests of Australian football collide?

The Young Socceroos failing to qualify for the 2027 AFC U20 Asian Cup is the latest example.

Australia finished third in its qualification group after a 2-0 defeat to Indonesia, failing to qualify for a tournament it won in 2025.

The result itself was disappointing. But the circumstances around the squad selection were arguably more so.

Several A-League players were unavailable because their clubs did not release them for the qualification campaign. Melbourne City’s Lawrence Wong and Medin Memeti and Adelaide United’s Amlani Tatu were among those affected.

The reason is straightforward. The U20 qualification tournament fell outside a FIFA international window, meaning clubs were not obliged to release players. A previous agreement between Football Australia and A-League clubs had allowed national teams to select domestic players outside those windows, but that arrangement expired.

That leaves a much bigger question than whether three players should have been available.

Why was there not a structure in place that could resolve this conflict before it became a problem?

One game, multiple priorities

The answer is partly structural.

Football Australia is responsible for the national teams and the broader national framework. The APL operates and commercialises the A-Leagues. State federations oversee their own competitions and development structures, while clubs have their own commercial, sporting and player-development priorities. Meanwhile, the PFA represents the players.

Football Australia’s own governance outline acknowledges the unbundling of Football Australia and the APL was completed at the end of 2020, while noting the two organisations still need to collaborate across areas including pathways, community football and national teams.

On paper, that separation makes sense.

In practice, difficulties emerge when the model is tested and conflicts of interest emerge.

A club has an obligation to its competition and its squad. Football Australia has an obligation to its national teams. Players have career considerations, while the APL has commercial and scheduling interests. State bodies have their own competitions and pathways.

None of those interests in isolation are necessarily unreasonable.

The problem comes when they point in different directions.

The cost of fragmentation

This is not the first time the club-versus-country question has reared its head.

The same issue has affected Australia’s youth pathways before. In 2012, then-national technical director Han Berger acknowledged the particular difficulty Australia faces because many young players are overseas and youth international tournaments are often held outside FIFA windows, meaning clubs are not obligated to release their players.

And there is a broader irony here.

Australian football is producing young players good enough to attract serious international interest. A-League clubs are increasingly important development environments, with 15 A-League players included in Australia’s 2025 U20 World Cup squad.

Yet the system seems to struggle coordinating those same players when the national team needs them.

That is not necessarily a club problem.

It is a system problem.

Who gets the final say?

The answer cannot simply be that Football Australia should have more power.

Nor should clubs be expected to sacrifice their own interests whenever national teams come calling.

The real issue is whether Australian football has clearly defined the points at which the interests of the national team, professional clubs and players intersect and importantly, where they take priority.

If it has, those rules need to be understood and consistently applied.

If it hasn’t, this should be the catalyst to fix them.

Because the consequences extend beyond one U20 tournament.

Australia’s youth national teams are part of the country’s player-development pathway. International tournaments provide players with experience, exposure and opportunities to progress. The U20 Asian Cup also serves as a pathway towards the FIFA U20 World Cup.

Missing that pathway matters.

At the same time, A-League clubs are investing in academies, recruiting young players and trying to build sustainable professional businesses. They cannot simply operate as talent suppliers for national teams without considering their own competitive and commercial interests.

That tension is natural, and not going away.

Australian football needs alignment, not another power struggle

The answer may therefore be less about deciding who is in charge and more about establishing who is responsible for what.

Football Australia, the APL, clubs, state federations and the PFA do not need identical objectives.

But they do need a common framework for the moments when those objectives collide.

That could mean clearer player-release agreements, longer-term scheduling coordination and defined mechanisms for resolving disputes before squads are announced.

The alternative is a cycle of arguments.

Clubs blame national team scheduling. National teams point to player availability. Players find themselves caught between employers and country. Fans are left wondering why a supposedly connected football system cannot agree on something as fundamental as making Australia’s best young players available for an international tournament.

That is why the Young Socceroos’ failure to qualify should prompt a bigger conversation than whether three A-League players were released.

Australian football has spent years building separate professional, national and community structures.

The next challenge is making those structures work as one.

Because when nobody has the authority or responsibility to resolve the competing interests, everyone can have a legitimate position and Australian football can still lose.

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