The Howie Games<\/a><\/i>podcast, the 61-year old, who had seen stints at Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest end in acrimonious circumstances in the last 18 months, said the chance to manage the final years of Ronaldo\u2019s celebrated career was too tempting to pass up.<\/p>\n\u201cThe fact I\u2019m going to share a dressing room with one of the greats, I make no sort of secrets about it \u2013 it was one of the enticements of the job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I reflect on my career, what stands out for me is that I\u2019ve been unbelievably blessed in being part of other people\u2019s journeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Socceroos, I worked with arguably our greatest ever player in Timmy Cahill, so I\u2019m a small part of his story. <\/p>\n
\u201cSonny (South Korea and former Spurs star Son Heung-min), the greatest ever Korean player, I\u2019m a small part of his story.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, there\u2019s no doubt, Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s here, you kind of go \u2018I can become a small part of his story as well\u2019. <\/p>\n<\/amp-img>Cristiano Ronaldo. (Photo by Abdullah Ahmed\/Getty Images)<\/span>Source: Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cAnd not from a selfish point of view, but for my own kind of life\u2019s journey, of everything I wanted to do since I was a kid \u2026 that was part of the attraction.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot that they\u2019ll tell my story alongside it, but I can tell that story, and that was a part of it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The interview was conducted in the early stages of Postecoglou\u2019s time at Al-Nassr, before his first competitive game at the helm and after Ronaldo bowed out of international football at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The pair haven\u2019t always seen eye to eye in his first months at the helm, with Postecoglou first leaving him out of his first two games before benching him at half time of a clash with Al-Ettifaq, which Al-Nassr went on to win 3-2 despite being 2-0 down at the time.<\/p>\n
He revealed he had had \u201chalf a dozen\u201d alternative job offers after being brutally sacked as Nottingham Forest manager in October last year after just 39 days in charge.<\/p>\n
Postecoglou\u2019s winning start has seen him named the Saudi Pro League\u2019s manager of the month, in identical fashion to his spectacular start at Spurs in 2023.<\/p>\n
He became the first ever manager to win the gong in his first two months at the helm after steering Spurs to a table-topping six wins and two draws from his first eight games, before fading late in the 2023\/24 season to finish fifth.<\/p>\n
The Australian was then axed after a disastrous 2024\/25 Premier League season, mere weeks after leading the club to its first silverware in decades with a Europa League triumph.<\/p>\n<\/amp-img>Ange Postecoglou. (Photo by Abdullah Ahmed\/Getty Images)<\/span>Source: Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFollowing the twin Premier League stints at Spurs and Forest, Postecoglou said the move to a lower-profile league was never an issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say \u201cit\u2019s not in Europe, it\u2019s not a higher profile league\u201d, but I\u2019ve always railed against people who are snobbish about certain leagues and everything,\u201c he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t going to turn around and say \u201cthat\u2019s a backwards step for me\u201d. I never see things that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, is there an opportunity there? Can I make an impact? Would I be excited about the prospect of doing it? <\/p>\n
\u201cIt ticked those boxes for me, because it\u2019s a league that\u2019s obviously invested a lot of money, there\u2019s some top managers here, some top players here. The chance to be a part of that was significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that accepting the Forest job so soon after his Spurs heartbreak had been an unwise move \u2013 that even his wife warned him against.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone around me, including my wife, said don\u2019t do it,\u201d Postecoglou admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ignored all of them and I said \u201cNo, I know the challenge and I love the challenge\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/amp-img>Ange Postecoglou lasted just 39 days at Nottingham Forest before being sacked. (Photo by Shaun Botterill\/Getty Images)<\/span>Source: Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cI thought it was a club where I could make an impact \u2013 but you know when you don\u2019t fit and I felt that from the first day. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite obvious that this was not the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was probably the worst three hours of my professional life when I got sacked. I paid a penance for that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the wolves circling after a poor start to his Forest tenure, Postecoglou revealed the axe falling immediately after a 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea took him by surprise.<\/p>\n
I literally walked in after the game, went to the coaches\u2019 room, and the sporting directors came in,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t even thinking they were going to sack me, I was thinking about the game \u2013 we weren\u2019t playing too badly, we just needed a goal. <\/p>\n
\u201c(I) get sacked in that room, and I was like, \u201cAlright, I\u2019m out of here\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walk out the door and literally all the media are there. They\u2019ve already been informed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Postecoglou also told Howard the long-standing comparisons to iconic television football coach Ted Lasso irritates him, and that he had never watched the award-winning Apple TV program.<\/p>\n
He said he felt the comparison to the American coach who switched from gridiron to coaching AFC Richmond in a fictional Premier League was demeaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat guy came from a different code \u2026 I\u2019ve come from the same code, do you understand?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s a different country, but football is my game. <\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t come from cricket into football.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat annoys me. And because it annoys me, I didn\u2019t watch it (the series).\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the undefeated four-win start, Al-Nassr sit second on the Pro League table on goal difference to rivals Al-Hilal, who signed Arsenal star Gabriel Martinelli on a record $112 million transfer fee.<\/p>\n
Their next match, against Al-Ittihad, is on Sunday morning (AEST).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ange Postecoglou has opened up on what motivated him to move to Saudi Arabia and coach football icon Cristiano Ronaldo, after the Australian manager marked his first month in charge of Al-Nassr with another award. Postecoglou has made a stunning start to his time with the Saudi powerhouse, winning all five of his competitive matches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6807],"tags":[156],"class_list":{"0":"post-261089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leagues-cups","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}