There are worse sets of coattails to ride on, if you’re a budding Australian coach, than those belonging to Ange Postecoglou. Kevin Muscat has done it twice: in 2013, he succeeded him as coach of Melbourne Victory when Postecoglou took charge of the Socceroos, and then again in 2021 at Yokohama F. Marinos after his move to Celtic, eventually guiding both clubs to league titles.
He is aware of how that looks. Muscat’s knockers – and there are more than a few of those, due to his brutal physicality and chequered disciplinary record as a player – can easily dismiss those achievements because in both instances, there were rock-solid foundations put in place by Postecoglou.
Kevin Muscat has now won titles in three different countries.Credit: Getty Images/Instagram
“I’m not naive to the fact that it might be assessed that I’ve taken over jobs that were in a good place. That’s the reality,” Muscat says in Angeball, my recently released biography of Postecoglou. “To step into his footsteps twice, it’s not as easy as it bloody seems, trust me. It’s not that easy to follow the big fella.”
The credit for Muscat’s latest achievement cannot be siphoned off to anyone.
By winning the Chinese Super League with Shanghai Port over the weekend, Muscat has matched Postecoglou’s globe-trotting feats in becoming just the second Australian coach (after him) to win league in three different countries: Australia, Japan, and now China.
And ironically, it could lead to him retracing his old boss’s footsteps once again – all the way back to Glasgow.
Twelve months ago, Muscat was one of two final candidates for the vacant job at Rangers, the other club in Scotland’s Old Firm. As a player, Muscat was part of the squad that won the Scottish treble in 2002-03, and he had been previously linked to the role – but, like before, he was overlooked amid fears that Rangers could be accused of ‘copying’ Celtic by appointing a manager from Australia with a penchant for high-octane attacking football. Such is the petty nature of Glasgow’s iconic rivalry, one of the most heated in world sport, that a club will cut off its nose to spite its face.
Rangers went for Philippe Clement, a three-time Belgian Pro League winner – and in retrospect, it was a mistake. Clement is now under pressure to keep his job, with Rangers already nine points behind Celtic (and Aberdeen, who are equal-top of the table) after 10 games, having earlier fumbled qualification for the UEFA Champions League.
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