My acquaintance and friendship with Angie Postecoglou started 35 years ago (and still going strong) when Neos Kosmos was located in the heart of the city and somewhere near to that location in those days, there was a video store run by Angie’s sister Liz.
Liz asked me one day…
“Elia, my brother plays soccer and he is good. Are you interested in writing something about him?”
So I wrote, over the years kept writing, and I find myself continuing to write about him, because that tall, lean young man who at the time grew a moustache in order to look older, is today the coach of the Australian national soccer team!
This is a supreme honour not only for him or his family, but also for the Greeks of Australia and beyond these shores, and everyone, some more than others, all have the right to say: “He is our Ange!”
For the new coach of the Socceroos I could write an entire book, but today, though, I shall limit myself to only two stories that helped him become ‘Our Ange’, the coach of this country’s national soccer team.
South Melbourne Hellas had won its first national soccer championship in 1984 with coach Len McKendry and president of the club Leonidas Anezakis .
Playing at left back, with the number 3 on his jersey, was Ange Postecoglou, who had a great season and if my memory serves me correctly, also scored 11 goals that year!
His fame reached all the way to Greece – one evening my phone rang and at the other end of the line there was my good friend, Alketas Panagoulias, who is now ‘playing soccer in paradise’, but who at the time was coaching Aris of Thessaloniki.
“Elia, who is this Postecoglou? Is he worthy as a player?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “He is worthy and sign him as soon as you can before anyone else does it.”
“Okay, Elia speak to him, I’m sending you two air tickets with Olympic, bring him and I will be waiting for you in Thessaloniki,” Panagoulias told me.
Unfortunately, I could not go, so Ange travelled with his father Dimitri .
At that time as it happened, John Margaritis, our famous Giannelos to us old soccer followers, was in Thessaloniki as well. An old player of PAOK and coach of South Melbourne Hellas, Margaritis wanted Ange to join PAOK.
Confusion was the end result and Ange did not go anywhere, but returned to Melbourne in order for destiny to get him where he is today.His appointment as national coach would never had happened if many years ago Aris of Thessaloniki acted differently.
But who is to say that if Ange was to stay in Greece, he could today be coaching the national soccer team of Greece instead of Fernando Santos.
Unfortunately (but in retrospect fortunately), he returned to Australia.
If Postecoglou is for every one of us ‘our Ange’, he himself has his own special ‘guardian angel’, a great man, a leading light in soccer, a friend and ‘brother’ in the rough. I am referring here to George Vassilopoulos, president and leader in three of the four national soccer championships won by the top soccer team of the century for the continent of Oceania, South Melbourne Hellas.
Ange was captain of the best soccer team of all time and all championships (according to his own ratings), a team comparable to his own Brisbane, a team which won the 1991 championship having the famous Hungarian and Real Madrid player Ferenc ‘Pancho’ Puscas as coach.
When the beloved ‘Pancho’ returned to Hungary, his assistant Dimitris Pyrgolios took over the wheel of the blue and white ‘queen’…
Then, in 1994-95 came Frank Arok who, somewhat in the middle of the season, resigned, making way for Ange Postecoglou to step in as a temporary coach. Hellas finishes in 6th place and George Vassilopoulos entrusted Ange with the position of coach for the new season … a decision that was hotly disputed and disagreements broke out … “George, are you mad? Ange Postecoglou coach of Hellas?” said an English-speaking colleague to Vassilopoulos. “He will ruin Hellas, what are you doing?”
George Vassilopoulos, however, saw something in the young coach, and answered his critics, who were multiplying daily, by emphatically stating: “Ange will do well, mark my words … And one day he will take over as the coach of the Australian national soccer team.”
I vividly recall him saying this to me in our endless discussions, I remember it as if it was yesterday, even though 18 years have gone by.
The season started with Ange on the bench and as time went by, the storm of discontent grew larger and larger. A defeat in the opening game, another defeat, a third, fourth, fifth, sixth defeat, seven consecutive defeats in total.
George Vassilopoulos did not hide away, but was there, publicly supporting the coach of his choice.
In the eighth game, on a rainy Wednesday evening, came the first 1-0 win at Newcastle.
“I was sure,” George says today. “I was sure that Ange would do well and look where he is now”.
“I felt vindicated when Angie coached South Melbourne to two championships in 1998 and 1999 and for our team’s dignified presence in Brazil for the Federation Cup and by Angie’s back to back championships in Brisbane. But I feel more vindicated now, even if this has come later rather than sooner for my faith and certainty in the early years that one day he would take over the management of the Australian national soccer team,” said George. And here we are today – Angie Postecoglou is the new soccer coach of Australia.”
It is an honour for all of us, and especially for George Vassilopoulos, who still persists and states: “This man has something special in the way he talks and communicates to the players.”
To the present, and ‘Our Ange’ is ready to go to the World Cup, coaching next to giants, like when he coached South Melbourne Hellas in Rio de Janeiro, seated next to Sir Alex Ferguson at a press conference at the Sheraton Hotel by the Atlantic Ocean, with Vassilopoulos standing beside me trying to hold his tears of joy.
From the bottom of my heart I wish you every possible success, ‘Our Ange’.
I still remember those days, especially one September in 1999 in Fiji, when South Melbourne Hellas was trying to qualify for the Federation Cup in Brazil, with the participation of all the champions of all the soccer regions in the world.
These are some of my recollections of the new 48-year-old Socceroos coach, who originated from Chalkida, who has been a fan of Liverpool and of AEK Athens since he was born in AEK’s neighbourhood Philadelphia in Athens, and who above all worships the game of soccer. That worship and love of football is what has led him to where he is today.