ANGE HAS LOTS TO CHEW OVER
Australian insists he won’t be distracted amid Tottenham link
IN AN unexpected turn, Ange Postecoglou spent time yesterday pondering man’s ability to walk and chew gum at the same time. Commonly used to describe the difficulty people have with multitasking, the idiom was pertinent to the pressing matter of the day.
Preparing for a Scottish Cup final against Inverness Caledonian Thistle, the Celtic manager insists he can’t focus on that and ponder a move to Tottenham Hotspur at the same time.
The bookmakers might have closed the book on a Spurs approach after Hampden. Media outlets might be falling over themselves to link him with the post after a nod and a wink from those in the know.
Despite the creeping inevitability of a move next week, the Australian consistently peddles the same line.
His success as a football manager owes everything to his ability to go all-in wherever he works.
If he allows his mind to wander, he stops winning football games. And, when he stops focusing intensely on winning football games, clubs like Celtic and Spurs stop paying attention.
‘I have yet to see somebody who walks and chews gum and is really, really successful,’ he insists.
‘If anything, what people have told me is you’ve got to get more balance in your life and I keep saying there is no balance. Apart from family, this is it.
‘Do you think the person who wins The Masters or Wimbledon thinks about all these other things [that you’re thinking about]? Or does he think about winning?
‘I am talking about elite sport here. Maybe you don’t understand or conceptualise that. But it is not just elite sport. It is anything you want to do in life; do you think people who achieve things and teams who achieve things can be that easily distracted that they chew gum and walk at the same time?
‘You really think that’s the message… you think I’ll walk into training and say: “Hey, boys, what are we all doing after training? Let’s go out and have a drink and relax.” No, mate, it is not how it works.’
Nothing would derail the Postecoglou for Spurs bandwagon quite like a defeat to Inverness. Written off as virtual no-hopers, the Championship team failed to make the play-offs in the second tier. They head into their biggest game in years without a competitive fixture in four weeks. Relentless in his quest to drive opponents into the dust, however, there’s a little more riding on this cup final than usual for the Celtic boss.
Lose and the headlines would run for days. Tottenham fans demanding a bigger, sexier name would have more fuel for the fire.
‘I’d love you to be in my shoes and know what my world is and make sure that, on Saturday, we perform to the levels we can,’ he adds.
‘You don’t understand that because you’d love the opposite to happen. You’d love for there to be a story that we aren’t successful. That would rock your world.
‘Not because you want ill of me, but that would be unbelievable. Imagine the headlines you could come up with. That is what generates interest. I have lived that; every weekend we have a game, there are only two stories that can be told.’
There is one surefire way he could kill the speculation stone dead. He could reiterate his commitment to Celtic. He could tell Daniel Levy he is wasting his time.
Given the size of the club concerned, given the money and resources at stake, his failure to do so is conspicuous, natural and understandable. Even Celtic supporters whose outlook on the world spans no further than the old bank on Parkhead Cross fear the worst now.
‘I understand that and I understand yourselves because you have a job to do,’ said Postecoglou.
‘I will do what I think is the most important thing in my role for the next four days, as I would in any other case, and that is to try and get the team to win the Scottish Cup.
‘I don’t know if it’s natural but that’s how I’m wired, how I am where I am. You’ve got to remember, from where I started 26 years ago, to be here I’ve had to be almost perfect in my coaching.
‘Any missteps along the way and I would have struggled to get anywhere near European football, and now I’m at such a massive club. I’ve had to be driven.’
At the age of 57, Postecoglou’s managerial stock is higher than it’s ever been. He grew up a supporter of Liverpool and chances to coach in the English Premier League won’t come much better than Spurs. There’s an air of now or never about the opportunity opening up.
‘This football club plays in the Champions League. Like everyone else, I want to be competing at the highest possible level, wherever that may be,’ he said.
‘That’s how I got to a World Cup with Australia because I wanted to test myself against the best teams in the world. It landed on my doorstep at the right time, because there’s so many things that need to be aligned for these things to happen.’
When it comes to Tottenham, it feels as if the stars are aligning perfectly.