FRIENDLY FIRE
Respectful rivalry with Gio won’t distract Ange in Old Firm battlefield
THE rules of engagement dictate that Ange Postecoglou and Giovanni van Bronckhorst face off as sporting enemies on Wednesday night. The Celtic manager gets the rivalry. He refuses, however, to keep a safe professional distance from the Rangers boss simply because there are those in Glasgow who savour their football drenched in bitterness.
The demands of their respective jobs mean there simply isn’t time or scope for the two managers to develop a deep friendship but they have bumped into each other socially and established a genuine rapport.
It wasn’t so different with Van Bronckhorst’s predecessor either. After August’s narrow defeat at Ibrox, Postecoglou spent time in the company of Steven Gerrard and his staff and made a warm impression as they shared stories and philosophy.
A hard-headed idealist, the Aussie knows his job is to topple Rangers as Premiership champions.
And while he will spend Wednesday evening trying to subject his counterpart to a miserable managerial introduction to the Old Firm fixture, he intends to draw a line as soon as the final whistle blows — no matter the result.
He said: ‘I’ve bumped into Gio a couple of times and he’s a nice guy. He’s very passionate about what he wants to do as a manager and wants success for his football club.
‘He knows I am the same but that doesn’t mean we somehow change who we are.
‘On a game day, we both want our teams to win but, if I bump into him afterwards, like every other manager, I’ll treat him with respect because that’s far more important than anything else.
‘I am not going to dislike somebody because people want you to dislike them. I’ll make my own assessments about people.
‘One thing I do absolutely understand and respect is every other manager because I know how difficult a job it is, I know what I have to go through on a daily basis and appreciate that.
‘We are in privileged positions and we are there to set an example sometimes. People will look at our behaviour and I want to make sure in my dealings that I represent this football club more than anything else in the right manner.
‘This football club will always be respectful of everybody.’
Such has been the scale of the required rebuild since he took on the job, Postecoglou has had limited opportunity to get out and about in his new home.
The environment is markedly different to his previous bases in Yokohama and Melbourne but he has found the Scottish people to be largely welcoming. Even those from the other side of a city that has a tendency to filter everything through either a blue or greentinted lens.
‘I am not exposed to it too much, but the interactions I have had with supporters of other clubs have all been fairly friendly,’ he said.
‘There’s plenty of banter. You’re always wary when the teenage boys are coming up to you because they are the ones that tend to be the bravest but so far it’s been good-natured.
‘I understand they are passionate about their football club and that’s what I expect them to be.
‘My perspective is I enjoy people who are passionate about football.
Rarely have I not liked people who are passionate about the same things I am.’
Last season, Celtic finished 25 points behind their great rivals with a squad full of players desperate to depart, whether they be expensive loanees due back at their parent clubs, or men like Odsonne Edouard and Kristoffer Ajer who’d long had their eye on an exit to England’s Premier League.
In one respect that left Postecoglou with a clean slate to make his own mark. Yet the club’s willingness to indulge the dithering of first-choice candidate Eddie Howe meant that when he was eventually installed, Postecoglou had little time to enact the necessary changes.
In the circumstances, what he has achieved is remarkable.
Points were inevitably shed in the early weeks of the league season but the manager’s recruitment work has returned a startlingly high success rate.
Joe Hart, Josip Juranovic, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Jota and Liel Abada have all enhanced Celtic’s performances.
His marquee purchase Kyogo Furuhashi required a significant outlay of £4.5million to Vissel Kobe but he has been a smash hit and emboldened the club to back their manager with three subsequent additions from Japan.
As he assimilated his new players, Postecoglou became tetchy when asked about the significance of the league standings, a mood he would now like to clarify.
‘It wasn’t so much the obsession about the table,’ he explains. ‘It was the obsession about actually calling the league that I was talking about.
‘Even this week, there aren’t going to be any trophies handed out at the end of the game.
‘I’d get it if there’s a really big gap and it was almost impossible to change the fortunes but they were calling the league back in October, which was kind of unusual.’
With the League Cup already ensconced in the Celtic Park boardroom, Postecoglou has plenty credit in the bank and he expects the title race to go to the wire regardless of this week’s outcome.
‘That’s my sense, that it’s unlikely there will be a massive gap there,’ he said ‘But these things can fluctuate quickly. We started slowly but, if you look say after round five (of league games) it’s pretty even between us and Rangers.
‘So my gut tells me it will be a tight title race and that’s the beauty of it. Instead of calling it, let’s see how it develops.’