Tottenham-linked Ange Postecoglou has delivered a deep, heartfelt insight into exactly why he loves attacking football so much and does not enjoy setting up his teams to stop the opponent.
The 57-year-old is expected to make the move this week from Celtic, after winning the domestic treble with the Glaswegian side, to north London and Spurs to begin the rebuild at the Premier League club. Tottenham want to return to attacking, attractive football after a few years spent with more glamorous but defensively-minded coaches and Postecoglou's fast and furious possession-based front foot football has been catching the eye of plenty of clubs across Europe.
In a fascinating podcast recorded three years ago for Anthony Hudson's Masterminds - Elite Coach Development series, Postecoglou was asked where his philosophy of football came from. His answer was a long and insightful response, which showed not only how important his Greek father was to his beliefs but also how deep-rooted his commitment to attacking football truly is.
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Here is his answer in full and if you want to listen to the rest of the podcast you can head right here.
"It's an interesting question and it's a question I probably get asked more than any other because anyone who knows me or has followed my journey as a coach knows that I'm a strong believer in the football that we play," said Postecoglou. "Often people want me to come up with this magical answer that gives them clarity on where it came from but it's very hard for me to pinpoint.
"The one overriding factor in everything I've done in football I guess, and in respect of life, is that I fell in love with the game of football. I grew up in Australia where football was not the number one sport when I was growing up in the seventies there. It was very much a part-time sort of sport and in the country's priority of sporting rankings it was probably fifth or sixth down the line.
"So for me as a young kid to fall in love with the game when all you want to do as a young person is fit in, it would have been easier for me to fall in love with the other codes in Australia. The basic reason was that we were immigrants from another country, we came from Greece, didn't know the language, didn't know a person in Australia and my father I guess in his own way, when he took us to this foreign land, he tried to find a way to connect with me as his son, who was five or six-years-old.
"He was really scared of losing me if I connected with a sport that wasn't one he understood or was familiar with, he was really big on the people I was associated with. It was just his way I guess of parenting. He had to find a connection between us.
"The reality is, like a lot of people with their parents as my story is not unique around the world, my dad didn't spend a lot of time at home with us. He was working all the time and I was conscious that he would roll up late at night, sit down at the dinner table, there wasn't much conversation and then he'd fall asleep on the couch and do the same thing the next day.
"But when it came to football he became a different person. As a young boy that really resonated with me and I figured out that if I'm going to get close with my dad, and I wanted to get close to my dad, I had to fall in love with what made him come out of his shell. In a foreign land that was football.
"The nights he would wake me up in the middle of the night, I remember getting a tap on the shoulder and knowing there must be a game on on the other side of the world. I would sit down on the couch with my father and watch the game. I fell in love with the game in those moments.
"Inevitably his influence was that he loved the players that would excite so he would love a player like your dad Anthony (former Chelsea and England international Alan Hudson), and the entertainers of the time. He would always point them out to me. He loved Ferenc Puskas and the Hungarian team of the 50s and 60s. He loved Leeds United with Eddie Gray dribbling and Peter Lorimer hitting bombs. For people of today's generation I'm talking a long time ago.
"They were the people that excited him and he kept pointing them out to me. The 1974 World Cup, the Dutch team that played there, we sat up in the middle of the night because in Australia it was on then.
"I just think that somehow subliminally all of those things became a part of me and my philosophy and how I want my teams to play is just an extension of me. It's why if I've had success it's because people are willing to follow me on the journey because I'm not trying to impose something on them that I've learned or that we've seen somewhere else and I've tried to copy.
"They just see it as an extension of me. It's a lot easier to believe in something or someone when that message that's coming from them is a genuine one. It comes from them.
"So that whole upbringing of mine, when I got into coaching I sit there as a coach and I want my team to have the ball. I get no satisfaction from setting up the defensive structure that stops an opposition. That just doesn't excite me. I get excited when my team has the ball. So if that's what excites me so I set up my teams to have the ball and I set up my teams to get the ball back quickly. I set up my teams to score goals and excite.
"My father passed away two years ago and it's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my life because it made me realise how entwined he was in everything I had done in football and in life in many respects. I crystallised after he passed away that what I'm really doing is I'm putting out teams and building teams to play in a way that my dad would have enjoyed watching.
"I'm always thinking about if he's sat in the stands and watching this game, is he liking what my team is doing? When it's something that strong it's impossible to shift me. You can't shift me from what I believe. As I said, if I've had success with teams it's because the players and the staff and everyone in the club has seen that and then see that ok this guy, this is part of who he is, so it's not an idea that's going to change."
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