By Vince Rugari
Few people thought Harry Kewell would become a coach after he retired. From an outsider’s perspective, he never really seemed the type. Firstly, he was a winger, heavily reliant on innate talent and physical attributes. Most high-level managers tend to be former midfielders or defenders, more cerebral players involved in more of the play, organising and directing their teammates rather than finishing things off in the final third.
Kewell also seemed ... well, a little bit too cool for management. He looked like a member of a boy band and his wife was a soap star. They married in Las Vegas. He modelled for Politix. He was a straight-up celebrity, the jewel of Australia’s golden generation. With all due respect, he never spoke (at least publicly) in any sort of super-articulate way – about the sport or anything else – and nobody expected him to. A life on red carpets, superyachts and billboards for luxury brands surely beckoned if he wanted it.
Who could have imagined him holding a clipboard, wearing an initialled tracksuit in pouring rain?
But those who knew him best – the ones who knew the real person behind the Socceroos legend’s aloof superstar facade, and knew his perceived arrogance was always hiding genuine shyness – reckon they could have picked it.
“It didn’t surprise me, no,” said Ron Smith, the Australian coaching guru and former Socceroos analyst who first spotted Kewell when he was a teenager tearing up fields across western Sydney. Kewell credits Smith, to a large degree, for shaping his understanding of the mechanics of football.
“Harry was one who was always keen to talk about the game, and why things happened, and what players should do. There was a period there, when he was playing, he’d give me a buzz and say, ‘Have you been watching the games? Have you got any feedback, how do you think I’m playing?’ And we’d have some conversations that were always quite interesting.”
Harry Kewell’s Yokohama F. Marinos are into the AFC Champions League final.Credit: Getty
Even more unfathomable than the idea of Kewell the coach, to the rest of us, was of Kewell the successful coach. After being chewed up and spat out by three different clubs in England’s lower leagues, most recently by fifth-tier outfit Barnet, the industry seemed to be telling the 45-year-old what the doubters thought we knew from the beginning: you’re not cut out for this, mate.
But Kewell now has the opportunity to cement himself as Australia’s next great manager when his Yokohama F. Marinos side play host to Al Ain in the first leg of the AFC Champions League final. The UAE powerhouse are coached by Hernan Crespo, the Argentinian who scored twice for AC Milan in the 2005 UEFA Champions League final against Kewell’s Liverpool – a neat bit of footballing symmetry.
Only one other Australian manager has won the ACL before: Kewell’s former Socceroos teammate Tony Popovic, who famously steered the Western Sydney Wanderers to victory in 2014. Not even Ange Postecoglou could do it during his sensational spell at Yokohama, in which he cemented an Aussie legacy of attacking, possession-based football at the Japanese club first carried by Kevin Muscat, and now Kewell, who took over at the start of this year.
It’ll kick off at around 11am London time on Saturday, and Postecoglou has a pretty big game to prepare for on that day – Tottenham, coming off four losses on the bounce, face Burnley at home – but he wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Harry Kewell and Ange Postecoglou worked together for a year and a half at Celtic.Credit: Getty
“I’ll be watching,” he told Optus Sport this week.
“I follow Pete Cklamovski at [FC] Tokyo, ‘Musky’ [Muscat] with Shanghai [Port] ... I’ll have it on for sure. It’s a great thrill for me to see these guys and I really hope that they all eventually find their way across here to make an impact because I really think as Australians ... I believe we have something [to offer] as coaches and managers, I really do.”
Postecoglou played a huge role in Kewell’s managerial renaissance, plucking him out of nowhere to join Celtic as a first-team coach in 2022 and give him the perfect platform to rehabilitate his reputation after a torrid spell in England.
After cutting his teeth with Watford’s under-23s, his first head coaching job was at League Two side Crawley Town. In retrospect, choosing to leave them for divisional rivals Notts County after 15 months was the beginning of his downward spiral.
Harry Kewell didn’t last long as Oldham Athletic manager.Credit: Getty
He was sacked less than three months later after just three wins from 15 games. He lasted seven months in his next post, at Oldham Athletic, where he became their fifth manager in 12 months. Next up was Barnet; he was their 26th manager in 10 years, and was shown the door after seven games.
“I wouldn’t change one thing,” Kewell told Optus Sport almost three years ago.
“The only thing I don’t get a grip on is the unprofessionalism of certain people within clubs. One minute you see them talking to you, and then the next minute they completely stab you in the back. I’ve been harshly done by ... by people that don’t know the game.
“I’ve gone into four clubs. One was good, but the other three have given me an idea of, ‘Hey, I want you to transform the club. I want to play this, I want this, I want everything done properly.’ But they want it done last year.
Harry Kewell could become just the second Aussie coach to win the AFC Champions League.Credit: Getty
“The Barnet owner turned around and said, ‘I would love to get to an FA Cup final.’ You are Barnet! You’re in the Conference. What are the chances? You can have a dream, I get it, but if you’re going to have a dream like that, make sure you back it up by doing everything properly, not just hoping.”
Not long after giving that interview, Kewell received a call out of the blue from Postecoglou, asking him to join his staff in Glasgow. He was given a very hands-on role, and he flourished: Daizen Maeda, Celtic’s Japanese international, credited Kewell with helping him take his game to a new level, and described him as one of the best coaches he’d ever come across.
Australian coaching guru Ron Smith.Credit: Tim Clayton
Kewell, in turn, credited his positive experience working with Maeda in convincing him to move to Yokohama after positive endorsements from Postecoglou and his replacement, Muscat, who sought a new challenge in China.
It has not been smooth sailing – Yokohama are mid-table in the J.League, with just four wins from 11 matches, but their focus has been on the AFC Champions League, last month overturning a 1-0 deficit in the first leg of their semi-final against South Korea’s Ulsan HD to win a penalty shootout and book their spot in the final.
Smith deeply admires Kewell’s dogged persistence in chasing his managerial ambitions, which may be about to pay off handsomely.
“It says a lot for him. It shows how much he wants it,” Smith said. “It’s a great experience to have to do things when you don’t have all the resources that you may have been used to having as a player.
“Harry will have seen this in very different lights because he played for top clubs, and at top clubs, you have great resources, and then to go and manage a club that’s several divisions below where you played ... I can only imagine it was a shock. Good on him.”
Kewell took over a team in pretty good working order at Yokohama, thanks to the magnificent handiwork of Postecoglou and Muscat before him, but promised at his unveiling to add “my own gold dust” to the foundations he inherited.
An Asian title would certainly do it.
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