Harry Kewell has revealed the Ange Postecoglou text message charm offensive that convinced him to join the Celtic coaching staff..
The Aussie joined John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan by his compatriot’s side in the summer as first team coach and it’s been a shrewd move on both parts, with Kewell getting to cut his coaching teeth away from the glare of being No 1, and the Hoops nine points clear at the top of the Premiership as players like Jota, Liel Abada, Kyogo and Daizen Maeda shine.
The last meeting between Kewell and Postecoglou prior to that came over a coffee in Melbourne when the then Socceroos boss informed the star man of Australian football that his international career was over. Kewell didn’t hold a grudge though, and admitted that Ange’s Celtic sales pitch, which included a glowing assessment of Kewell’s coaching abilities, meant he was keen to sign up straight away, although he made the boss wait for appearances sake.
“I had originally just got the Barnet job and then things happened there,” Kewell reflected. “Then in the summer time I was talking to a club, let's just say I was talking to them on the Monday and I got a text from the manager and I was taken aback. It was just one of the nicest messages I’ve ever read from a manager to a young coach.
“I showed my wife and said I was going to ring him. He told me he’d love for me to join up, he knew what I’d been through and had kept an eye on me - I didn’t know that - and knew what I liked, what I didn’t like. He thought it would be a good environment for me to come in and work with a great team and get back to where I belong.
“I was blown away. I said I’d get back to him in a couple of days then told my wife I was taking the job, because the way he spoke was enough. I didn't want to sound too eager so made him wait a little bit! But I was ready to say yes straight away.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about the manager, but they’re stories. It’s nice to get your own picture. I think personally, there’s two sides to him. One is the manager; he's very strict, likes the way things are run and is very intense. I like that.
“I felt coming in, it would take me a couple of weeks to learn his ideas and all that stuff. Within two days, I understood it because that’s how clear his messages are. There’s no grey, it’s just black. That’s how we’re playing, this is what I want and that’s the way it is.
“But then there’s the other side to him. He’s like a father. That personality to joke around - very rarely - but when you do catch him at those times, he’s just generally a nice person to talk to and you want to work for. As much as he’s intense as a manager, he’s a good human being. And they’re the ones you want to work for. He’s confident enough in his ability to know that he can help. It’s when people are confident enough that they want to try and protect this and protect that.”
Kewell is tasked with improving the champions on an individual basis as well as ensuring they remain the well-oiled machine that has delivered three trophies in just over a year. There’s a test he puts them through to ensure they’re listening, and admits that they have now come out of their shell after proving tough nuts to crack when he first came through the door.
“With Daizen (Maeda), he’s a very good listener and learner. What you say to him, he’ll listen and take it on board,” Kewell told the Big Interview podcast with Graham Hunter. Even when I have my meetings with my players, it’s not about: ‘I’m the coach, you’re the player, you listen to what I say’. No, no, no. We’re just in an environment here to have a chat. I’m going to say something that’s completely wrong but I want to see if you pick up on it, because that means you're going to be confident enough to be ale to go: ‘I don’t agree with that’. Then I know that they’re listening.
"Otherwise they just sit there saying yep, yep, yep and people don't want to go into meetings. They want to do other things. I’ll question it and ask if they're sure about that. Then they’ll think about it. My first question to my players is always ‘what do you think?’ and at first, they were shy. Now, I’ll spend an hour with Jota and we won’t even start with the video. We’ll be talking about it.
“Certain players have to have a certain demand. If you;re an attacker, you have to be quite demanding. I even got to the point when I rang Ian Harte and asked what I was like as a player. He said: ‘I just gave you the ball. You were demanding but that’s what you want.’
“Some of these players are maybe shy because they’re still young. They’re playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world. My first impressions were that Celtic and Rangers dominate the league and all this. But being here, the amount of pressure on the Celtic team to win every day is tough. A draw’s not good enough.
“But we deliver that every day in training. We put pressure on them to deliver and the manager puts pressure on us to make sure we're delivering the sessions that he wishes so that when the players go out, they’re ready for it."
They need to be ready to face the music in post-match debriefs as well if they are guilty of Kewell's pet hate. He added: “That’s what I was born and bred on, is taking defenders on. It’s easier for these to take players on, than to feel my wrath after the game if they haven’t taken them on! So they’re learning. ‘I’m taking him on because if I don’t, I’m going to be getting it in the ear’. When we’re watching the videos and they pass the ball back I go ‘what the hell?’ and they know when it’s coming.”
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