MOGAMAD ALLIE: Postecoglou’s flying start at Spurs boosts minnow managers

The international break means Tottenham Hotspur will stay at the top of the Premier League for at least another two weeks as Ange Postecoglou’s dream entry to life in the fast lane of English football continues. 

The unexpectedly great start in which Spurs tops the table with north London rivals Arsenal, is the best since the Lilywhites won the league and cup double in 1961. It is also the first time they have been at the top of the table since December 2020. Small wonder there are suddenly so many Spurs fans confident enough to wear their replica shirts in public.

The turbo start is also an early vindication of Postecoglou’s appointment, a choice initially mocked by some pundits and questioned by sceptical fans who were hoping for a high-profile appointment such as Julian Nagelsmann or Luis Enrique. 

The big Australian’s achievements with Scottish giants Celtic, with which he won consecutive league titles, finishing off with the treble last season, got him the job with a club desperately seeking to restore itself among English football’s elite.

The 58-year-old former defender, who won four caps for Australia, has not only delivered results, he has also got the team playing the attacking brand of football that has always been associated with the great Spurs teams of the past. 

Postecoglou’s style is in stark contrast to the dour, boring fate delivered by his predecessors, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte.

Hollywood auditions

The new Spurs manager is clear that being Australian where football is not as big as in Europe or South America has made it more difficult for him to break through in the big leagues. When he landed the Celtic job in June 2021 after Eddie Howe turned it down it ended a frustrating 25-year wait to work at a big European club.   

“It was like going for those Hollywood auditions and being rejected — they just didn’t know who I was. It was so depressing. I’d been working 25 years in the game and still no breakthrough,” he told former Spurs striker Gary Lineker on the BBC’s Football Focus programme. 

“I never thought I’d get here — not because of my ability. I just thought no-one’s gonna look that way, it’s just not gonna happen. People kept telling me, ‘You’re better off getting sacked three times in Europe and keep being successful over on the other side of the world’.” 

It is not like he has not had any success — he won the Asian Cup in 2015 with Australia a year after coaching them at the World Cup in Brazil. He also qualified the Socceroos for the 2018 World Cup but quit six months before the tournament to take up a job with Japanese side Yokohama F Marinos whom he guided to their first league title in 15 years in his second season with the club. 

Postecoglou’s great start to life in the world’s toughest league could inadvertently open doors for managers from other smaller footballing countries to jobs with European clubs.

A number of African coaches are on the fringes, just waiting for the big breakthrough. Pitso Mosimane, who won three African Champions League titles — two with Egypt’s Al Ahly and one with Mamelodi Sundowns — has been widely tipped to break into the European leagues. 

Not ready

Mosimane, who guided Al Ahly to promotion to the Saudi Premier League last season before being unceremoniously dumped and replaced by German Matthias Jaissie, has had a tougher campaign this time with United Arab Emirates side Al Wahda but there is still enough time for him to secure a move to Europe. 

He struck a pessimistic note two years ago, just after winning the Champions League title with Al Ahly, saying, “Europe is not ready for African coaches. You cannot tell me Wayne Rooney [manager of second-tier Derby County at the time] is better than me.” 

Walid Regragui won the Champions League with Wydad Casablanaca in 2022 and seven months later guided Morocco to a historic semifinal place at the World Cup in Qatar — the first African team to reach the last four of Fifa’s flagship tournament.

Benni McCarthy already has a foot in the door as a member of Erik ten Hag’s coaching staff at Manchester United while Quinton Fortune, assistant coach at Mexican club Deportivo Guadalajra, did the same job at English Championship side Reading in 2020.   

Ghana’s Michael Essien, who won the Champions League with Chelsea, is working towards his Uefa Pro Licence qualification and appears to be well-equipped to take the step up. 

Having had a taste of coaching as part of the technical team at Danish Superliga club FC Nordsjaelland, the former Ghana international, regarded as one of the world’s best holding midfielders in his day, is confident that Africans will soon be making their mark as coaches in Europe’s top leagues. 

“I think it's just a matter of time before you start seeing our generation of footballers becoming top-level coaches,” Essien told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.   

Essien is one of many recently retired African footballers exploring coaching opportunities around Europe. Though the opportunities available to African coaches are few, he believes they will soon open up. “If you are smart enough and you have a passion for the game and still want to do something in and around the sport, the opportunities will come.”

Yaya Toure, four-time African footballer of the year, Champions League winner with Barcelona and Africa Cup of Nations winner with the Ivory Coast, has all the credentials to become a top manager, After an impressive short stint with Tottenham Hotspur Under-16, he took up a position as assistant coach at Belgian top-flight side Standard Liege at the start of the season.