Carlton coach Michael Voss couldn’t help but smile when he saw Ange Postecoglou’s name pop up on his phone.
He hadn’t expected the trailblazing Tottenham Hotspur manager, and big Carlton fan, to get back to his message of congratulations for his Europa League triumph.
After all, Postecoglou is the biggest deal in Australian sport right now, following his trailblazing Europa League final win over Manchester United.
“I wasn’t expecting a reply, but such is the man, he replied,” Voss said on Thursday.
“Short and succinct and the last message was ‘always watching’, which was a nice little message at the end.”
Postecoglou has long-standing links to Carlton, including being a part of the selection panel that chose Brendon Bolton as coach in 2015.
Voss spent time at Spurs over the off-season working with Postecoglou as part of a personal development trip and on Thursday morning relished his “special” triumph.
“He’s very forthright in his views, and I think some people have called him stubborn at times,” he said.
“But I just see a coach that really believes in what he thinks is the right way to do it, and he’s proven that over time.
“I will just say that probably the message is not so much what he told me, but what I get out of it was, it’s about persistence and modelling the right things and you gotta believe, keep getting after it.
“It really doesn’t matter what other people say. It’s more about what we think and what we believe.”
Voss hopes to draw on some of the adversity and pressure Postecoglou has overcome.
“Watching another coach go about their business and how they’re able to do that, it probably does put into context the enormity of the job,” he said ahead of Saturday’s clash with GWS at Marvel Stadium.
“And the level of persistence it takes to be able to obviously experience the ultimate.
“If anything, you walk away, you’re almost doubling down on the things you think are right. And that holds you in good stead.
“Maybe there’s a little bit of lessons in that for us right now.”
Source: AAP
