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The highest-profile Australian in China isn’t Anthony Albanese – it’s soccer manager Kevin Muscat

After years of tension between Beijing and Canberra, giant Australian flags are being waved in the stands of Shanghai Port’s Pudong Football Stadium. Not that head coach Kevin Muscat saw himself as a diplomatic envoy or anything of that sort.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his fiance Jodie Haydon walk along the Bund with former Socceroo and Shanghai Port FC Manager Kevin Muscat on Sunday. Picture: AAP
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his fiance Jodie Haydon walk along the Bund with former Socceroo and Shanghai Port FC Manager Kevin Muscat on Sunday. Picture: AAP

Until Anthony Albanese flew in on Saturday afternoon, Kevin Muscat had a good claim to being the highest-profile Australian in China.

The Shanghai Port FC manager, who went for a Sunday morning stroll on Shanghai’s famous Bund with the visiting Prime Minister and a scrum of accompanying Australian media, is certainly the most successful.

Muscat’s extraordinary football success in China has run on almost the same schedule as Albanese’s stabilisation project with Beijing.

The former Socceroo arrived in Shanghai at the start of 2023 after being headhunted to coach Shanghai Port, one of the city’s two teams in China’s top soccer league.

By the end of the year, Muscat and the mostly Australian coaching team he had assembled had led Shanghai Port to the top of the Chinese Super League.

After years in the diplomatic doghouse, giant Australian flags – and of Muscat himself – were being waved in the stands of Shanghai Port’s Pudong Football Stadium. Not that Muscat saw himself as a diplomatic envoy or anything of that sort.

“To be honest, I didn’t immerse myself in any of the political breakdowns,” he told The Australian in an interview at Shanghai Port’s training centre conducted before Mr Albanese’s visit.

“Football, for me, is an opportunity for people to come and forget their day-to-day stresses and enjoy themselves for two or three hours.”

The Muscat legend grew further in 2024 when Shanghai Port repeated the trick and again won the Super League after a nailbiting final round. It was the first time the club had ever won back-to-back champions, cementing Muscat’s hero status.

“This bald coach has achieved outstanding results and was called the ‘best signing’ by many fans,” wrote one local sports commentator in a glowing tribute.

Kevin Muscat, the Australian coach of Shanghai Port. Picture: Will Glasgow
Kevin Muscat, the Australian coach of Shanghai Port. Picture: Will Glasgow

This season Shanghai Port are in fourth place, still close enough for the famously competitive Muscat to contemplate snatching a triple.

One of his proudest achievements in China has been demonstrating that Chinese players could thrive at his style of technical football, which he had used to coach Melbourne Victory to win Australia’s A-League and Yokohama F. Marinos to win Japan’s J1 League.

There were many doubters. Helping Muscat prove them wrong were a team of Aussies including assistant managers Ross Aloisi and Vincenzo Ierardo, head of physical performance, Greg King, and Les Gelis, the team’s physiotherapist, who also met Mr Albanese on Sunday.

“We’re not just trying to win, we’re trying to create an identity that gives players pride and breaks down stereotypes,” Muscat told The Australian.

It is an approach that has won a lot of fans in Shanghai.

When I arrived at the Shanghai Port training facility before our interview, I was mobbed by young Chinese fans once they learned I was meeting their star coach.

“Can you please sign my jumper?” one asked, excitedly.

Explanations that I was just a journalist did not put him off. Soon two more grinning young fans were asking if they could get my signature as well on Shanghai Port FC merchandise – all for the connection to their beloved Australian coach.

Inside his office, Muscat passes me a portrait that had just been sent to him by another fan. Next to a good likeness of his pitch-side, steely-eyed visage, the fan had written: “Kevin, with you here, we never fear any team.”

A picture of Kevin Muscat from a Shanghai Port fan. Pic: Will Glasgow
A picture of Kevin Muscat from a Shanghai Port fan. Pic: Will Glasgow

Until his morning walk with the PM, Muscat has kept well away from politics in China. It is the same for almost all Australians living in China, a much smaller group now than before the pandemic.

While he does not want to discuss it, you can imagine that a high-profile Australian moving their career to China in early 2023 – after years of terrible bilateral politics – may have raised some eyebrows.

Not that he has shown any signs of regret. On Sunday, the Prime Minister was the latest to thank him for his decision to come.

”Australia’s economic relationship with China is important, but so are the community links that underpin it and help build on it,” Mr Albanese said. ”Whether that’s our vibrant Australian-Chinese community, Australian footballers in Shanghai or Chinese tourists in Sydney,” the PM said, calling Muscat and his team “ambassadors” for the country.

In return, Muscat gave the PM a maroon Shanghai Port FC jersey with his name on it.

Muscat is quick to point out that it has hardly been a hardship posting for him and his wife these past 2½ years. “Shanghai is the most international city in Asia. It’s vibrant, it’s bubbly, and you can have a quiet dinner or stay out,” he tells The Australian.

He reckons a lot of people back home have a muddled idea about China. “This is the safest place. You can walk home from a bar at all hours, leave your phone on a cab and it’ll be returned to you within an hour.”

His advice for those considering whether to take a Shanghai career posting? “If you come in understanding that you’re the one who has to adapt because you’re coming into someone else’s home, you enjoy it more.”

Read related topics:Anthony AlbaneseChina Ties

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-highestprofile-australian-in-china-isnt-anthony-albanese-its-soccer-manager-kevin-muscat/news-story/806a747fb00c0911d23d1a743d25f811