China’s favourite Australian reveals his next move after leading Shanghai Port to hat-trick of titles
Kevin Muscat, the PM’s sometimes walking buddy, was already the most successful Australian in China – and that was before the former Socceroo had another victory in the Chinese Super League.
In came Australia’s most successful sporting export to China – and out went the chant “Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!”
The Shanghai Port fans crowded at Shanghai’s Pudong airport were euphoric. Former Socceroo Kevin Muscat, unquestionably the most successful Australian living in China, had just returned from Dalian in the country’s freezing northeast with his winning team and yet another Chinese Super League title.
“It was pretty chaotic in the airport to say the least,” Muscat told The Australian after this weekend’s triumph.
The season was a cliffhanger. Only on Saturday, in the final round, did Shanghai Port secure its third consecutive title and the second under Muscat’s leadership with a 1-0 victory over Dalian Yingbo.
Weeks earlier, drama hit the club as Scottish club Rangers made an aborted attempt to snare Muscat in the final rounds of the season. That came four months after Muscat and his fellow Australian coaching staff met with Anthony Albanese for a walk on Shanghai’s Bund during the Prime Minister’s trip to China in July, when the team was placed fourth on the ladder.
For the Shanghai Port FC manager, who celebrated with his father and son on a dinner of steak and Penfolds Grange in a swish restaurant in Shanghai, the win was further vindication of his insistence that Chinese teams can play the style of technical football he had used to coach Melbourne Victory to win Australia’s A-League and Yokohama F. Marinos to claim Japan’s J1 League.
It was made all the sweeter because it followed the departure of some of the club’s highest-scoring foreign players at the end of last season, which had triggered waves of gloomy headlines about Shanghai Port’s future.
“I remember when we first arrived, they said ‘You can’t win the league. It’s impossible to win the league playing that style of football’,” Muscat said.
“We shattered that by breaking every record possible in the Super League last season.
“And this season, the guns were pointed firmly again by saying: ‘Well, with all the players that you’ve lost, it’s impossible. ‘
“We’ve broken that down in a fairly emphatic style as well.”
Shanghai Port fans will be delighted to hear Muscat is already talking about proving the club’s doubters wrong again next year.
“Hopefully next year, there’ll be another reason why we can’t go on and win the tournament – and we’ll prove everyone wrong again,” he said.
Muscat, who moved to Shanghai in late 2023, is contracted for a third season, although international clubs have already begun trying to poach him before the season gets under way.
“I’m contracted for another year here,” he told The Australian, saying practice was set to resume on January 8. “Plans are under way to retain the title again next year.”
Rangers Football Club, the storied Scottish team in Glasgow, made an unsuccessful attempt to snare the famously competitive player-turned-coach last month. Muscat said he would not comment out of respect for “the integrity of the conversations” with the Scottish club.
“I haven’t made comment and I won’t make comment in the future,” he said.
That the former Melbourne Victory coach stayed on to finish the season with Shanghai Port has only grown his already considerable legend in China.
China’s Football Daily, one of the most influential football mastheads in the country, credited the Australian manager for not jumping ship to Rangers before the end of the season while also praising his “calm and pragmatic approach” to the game.
“The team’s configuration didn’t have a significant advantage over its competitors, making Muscat, as head coach, undoubtedly the key contributor to Shanghai Port’s fourth Chinese Super League title,” the Football Daily wrote.
Among the Australian coaching staff who joined Muscat to meet the visiting Prime Minister in July were Ross Aloisi and Vincenzo Ierardo (the club’s assistant managers), Greg King (head of physical performance) and Les Gelis (the team’s physiotherapist). Was that prime ministerial encounter pivotal to the club’s late-season surge?
“I’d like to give the PM the credit but I’m not going to, and I’m sure he’ll understand,” Muscat told The Australian, noting his team “kept getting stronger” every month during the season.
“But [the PM] did give us well wishes to go on and win back-to-back for ourselves and a three-peat for the club.
“So I’m sure once the news filters through, he’ll reach out and we can reminisce about that conversation that we had.”
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