Popovic Showing His Class

One of the oldest cliches in football is ‘form is temporary, class is permanent,’ yet it does have a ring of truth to it, especially when it comes to coaching.

There are some coaches that are genuine leaders, and who are great at moulding teams and achieving success in various forms wherever they go. Of course how that success is measured varies because today we have things such as KPIs rather than simply the way a team plays and where they sit on the league ladder.

Some coaches have a short period of success before their methods become dated or predictable, while those coaches that are not up to the mark, usually do not last long in the game.

One coach who has shown that he clearly has class is Perth Glory’s Tony Popovic. When first appointed at Western Sydney Wanderers in 2012 he guided the team in its first season to the Minor Premiership and lost the Grand Final to the Central Coast Mariners.

In the 2013/14 season they finished runners up on the League table, once again they lost the Grand Final.

As a result of their success the team played in the Asian Champions League and Popovic guided them all the way to the final where they became the first Australian team to lift the title.

Their success proved to be their downfall. Having won in Asia the team took part in the 2014 World Club Cup, as well as the A-League and the Asian Champions League. So many fixtures for a European club would not be so great a challenge with a large squad, but for an A-League club with a restricted squad 44 games in a year proved a bridge too far.

In 2015/16 Popovic regenerated his squad and once again found success. The team finished second on the A-League ladder, but lost again in the Grand Final, this time to Adelaide United. At the start of this season Popovic had seen his initial four year contract extended by a further three years.

The following season the team finished sixth in the League and bowed out in the finals in their opening game. The same happened in the Asian Champions League.

Before returning to Australia to take on the head coach position at Wanderers Popovic had left his role as assistant coach at Crystal Palace, only a fool would have not expected him to jump at the chance to head to Europe when an opportunity arose.

However his choice of club did come as a surprise. Less than a week out from the start of the 2017–18 A-League season he joined Turkish side Karabükspor. Turkey is a notoriously hard place to play and an even harder place to coach as an outsider. After nine games, he was sacked by the club.

Who knows had Popovic made a success of his time in Turkey he may well have been the coach to replace Ange Postecoglou as Socceroos coach, and the FFA could have saved the money they spent on Bert Van Marwyk, it may also have meant that Graham Arnold would have missed out on a second stint at the helm. Of course we will never know, however Popovic has not done his chances any harm with the way he has turned Perth Glory around in 2018/19.

What his unsuccessful time in Turkey did mean was that he had to be successful at his next club. Fail, and he may well fall prey to the comment form is temporary, class is permanent.

Popovic was given a three year contract when he signed for Perth Glory. Other Coaches before him had been given the same, but their futures were dependent on making the finals. So each season that was their subconscious goal, thus ensuring their survival in a league with limited coaching opportunities.

Popovic apparently laid a three year plan on the table. His reputation is already that he is extremely thorough in his planning, and has a very clear vision of where he wants to be and how he is going to get there. Popovic is a winner. He is fiercely competitive, just as he was as a player. He wants to win. Making the finals is not the goal, winning the league is. That shift in attitude at Perth Glory has made a big difference. Suddenly the coach was not looking purely to survive, but was looking to achieve.

What is interesting is Popovic had that same job security at Western Sydney Wanderers and once again he achieved. Which proves to club owners if you put faith in a person to do a job, and they are the right person, you must let them do that job, and trust the decisions that they make.

Popovic is a strong individual. Talk to those who know him and they will tell you he is a focussed individual. He knows what he wants and he goes after it.

People will talk about how he changed the formation of Perth Glory this season and the difference that made, and it no doubt has had some impact but at the end of the day coaching is about man-management. It is about getting the best out of your players. When you have a squad, keeping those fringe players happy so that there is no sniping in the background is a challenge. This is where Popovic has excelled.

He has placed Diego Castro on the bench, a player many believe is amongst the best to grace the A-League. There was a great deal of comment from fans when this happened, yet Popovic has managed to harness the 36 year old’s mercurial talent to use him as an impact player. Popovic would have seen how playing 90 minutes he drifted in and out of the game. Now, by playing him in shorter bursts he is more effective and has played a major part in Glory running over teams late in games.

Of course Popovic laid down a marker when he insisted that all players report for pre-season at the same time. Something Castro had not done previously. There were no special rules for anybody. Everyone was equal, it was one team with one goal. He also made sure that the team was fitter than it had been in the past.

This season Popovic has killed the internal fight amongst the players to be top dog at the club. He has done this by benching players who expect to start, and by bringing in players he knows can do a job, like Brendan Santalab; a play Mich D’avray tried time and again to sign. The best coaches all have players like Santalab, players who are on the same page and whom they know will do what is required without any supervision or asking. Matthew Spiranovic is another such player having been with Popovic at Western Sydney. Brian Clough took John McGovern with him wherever he went and made him Captain at Nottingham Forest for those same reasons. These players are crucial if you want to achieve success.

One area where Popovic has excelled is in making players achieve. Joel Chianese had struggled at A-League level. He had never lived up to his potential. He had drifted down into lower league football. Kenny Lowe signed him in 2016, but still he looked out of place in the A-League. Under Popovic he looks a different player. He rescued Chris Ikonomidis from possible European oblivion after he was released from Danish Superliga club AGF, and again has helped rebuild his confidence and showcase his skills.

Popovic, whether Glory maintain their lead in the League and claim the Minor Premiership, whether they make the grand final or not has proven he is a quality coach. A leader of men. A man who can get the best out of his players.

There are many who will freely admit that interest in the A-League is waning. That the standard is not what it was. They may be right, but it would be churlish to use this argument to diminish what Popovic has achieved. His team can only play those other teams that are put on the park by the other clubs, and they have, and so far continue to show that they are better than them. One of the reasons they are better is because of their coach.

This writer did not believe he would achieve what he has in his first season at Perth Glory, that it would take more time. To have managed to take two teams to top of the League table in your first season at both clubs is the sign of a very good coach, a sign of class.