“Come Monday, when the boys are training, I might just do a drive by of Gosch’s Paddock and shed a tear and keep driving because I don’t want to embarrass anyone.”
Ange Postecoglou bowed out with the minimum of fuss on Friday night, after James Troisi’s second half goal had gifted Melbourne Victory a tidy 1-0 win over their coach’s former employers.
“I was given the opportunity to come back home and coach the biggest club in the country and whenever you’re given an opportunity like that, you want to repay that and I don’t think I have leaving at this point.”
The new Socceroos coach entered the post match press conference in a sombre mood, whispering into the assembled microphones as he is wont to do and speaking initially of the tough week that had gone by.
There was a touch of melancholia as Postecoglou recalled his move back to Melbourne as a championship winning coach eager to stamp his style on his hometown club.
“I guess in terms of tonight, it’s mission accomplished [but] it’s a tough one to get my head around,” he said.
“I was given the opportunity to come back home and coach the biggest club in the country and whenever you’re given an opportunity like that, you want to repay that and I don’t think I have leaving at this point.
“I still feel the club is in great shape and with the people still involved, I have no doubt they’ll get bigger and better and will definitely challenge this year.
“But you kinda leave thinking you should have put more into it and seen it through.”
Postecoglou also spoke at length about the support he had from the board and the high hopes he had for this year after a promising start to his Victory reign last season.
“We worked very hard in the offseason and the club backed me when we set some really lofty targets in terms of the quality of players we wanted to bring in,” he said.
“Mitch Nichols, James Troisi, Kosta Barbarouses and Pablo Contreras; in particular those four they’re all international players, real quality players that would improve any squad.
“Last year we had to do a major rebuild and we got some of our recruiting right, some of it wrong but this year I had the luxury of knowing that we had a really strong foundation of players backing up from last year and we just needed to surround them with a bit more quality and we’ve done that.”
There seems to be genuine pride when the 48-year-old talks about the squad he’s built this season, and he once again reiterated his oft-quoted belief that the Melbourne Victory will get on just fine without him.
“You can talk about quality of players and systems and tactics, but champion teams have character and I think they’ve shown real character in the last two weeks,” he said.
“There is still improvement in the side you know, we’ve still got players who are not yet very fit or who’ve come in late and are going to get better as the year goes on.
“Troisi and [Gui] Finkler and even Kosta, they’ve all come back really late [and then there’s] Pablo Contreras who I think is going to be an outstanding player.
“There’s improvement in this side and there’s quality people in the dressing room surrounding those players that are more than capable of doing what they need to keep the progress happening.”
The mood in the room had lightened up by this stage and Postecoglou was asked if he’d consider any of Victory’s players for his future Australian squads and if he’d stay in touch with people at the club.
“Well there’s some good players so I’ll be watching them. I like the football they play,” he said to peals of laughter around the room.
“I’m always available for advice or council but at the same time I feel very comfortable that the people who are here will continue what we’ve done so hopefully I don’t have to pick up the phone .
“Maybe if I needed a ticket or two, I’d pick up the phone but aside from that I’ll keep my role to a minimum.
“But I’ll be certainly wishing them all the very very best because they deserve it.”