'Popcorn': Ange Postecoglou rejects 'lowest common denominator' solution to Celtic and Rangers challenges

When it comes to bucking budgetary expectations in football, Celtic’s Ange Postecoglou has a pretty impressive calling card.

Celtic's Ange Postecoglou believes people are 'living in the moment' in being exercised by how his team and Michael Beale's Rangers are dominating in their domestic outings against the other clubs.(Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Former Hearts and Scotland manager Craig Levein this week essentially declared that the game’s a bogey in Scotland. A consequence of the huge financial advantages enjoyed by Celtic and Rangers having destroyed competitiveness at the top end. A situation that could only be resolved by the domineering Glasgow clubs decamping to England. Postecoglou, as might be expected, doesn’t care for such defeatist talk. Perhaps related to the fact that when he led last club Yokohama F Marinos to the J-League title in 2019, it was with a budget that ranked 13th among the 18-teams in that set-up. Albeit, any fiscal disparities were nowhere near as pronounced as in this nation, Celtic and Rangers operating with wage bills around five times that of Hearts in third.

“And it was the first time the club I was with had won it in 15 years,” said the Australian of his Yokohama title success. “I’m not saying it is easy to do. In many cases it is a really massive jump. But you are either aspirational or not. If you want something to improve, you don’t bring it to its lowest common denominator. You’re not really achieving anything with that. People in this country are really passionate about their football, really passionate about their football clubs, I get that. It is only two years ago that St Johnstone won two cups. My underlying feeling – and this is not just about Scottish football or football in general, but life – is I think it is always better to be aspirational than any other way.”

It can be a struggle for aspiration in the football domain when it is 38 years since the league was last the property of other than Celtic or Rangers. “Hmm. How many championships have Bayern Munich got in a row at the moment?” said Postecoglou of the 11th-straight-title chasing Bundesliga behemoths in relation to Levein’s stance. “Forever and a day there will be opinions on the game. And it is good theatre, great to grab your bucket of popcorn and listen to, but it’s not on my radar. I’m not in that head space.”

The summit of the Scottish game is on the 57-year-old’s radar with his team in the hunt for an honours clean sweep. Just as it is being pondered whether the Glasgow rivals are going to be challenged beyond their three confrontations. Indeed, after meeting in the League Cup final, it is suspected that only drawing each other in next month’s Scottish Cup semi-final prevented a second successive showpiece between them.

“I understand, but people are just so in the moment. When was the last time Rangers and Celtic met in a Scottish Cup final? [It was 2002 so] that tells you something. All this stuff is in the moment because we happen to be dominating the competition. In terms of the broader discussion around Scottish football, if the suggestion is that the best way to improve is to take away the highest standard you have within the game, then I don’t believe that. If you want to raise the standards then you try and attain the highest standard that already exists. So try and build teams up to that rather than give everyone a lower bar. Mate, I lived in Australia where there is a salary cap, where there is equalisation and, let me tell you, there is no one in Scotland that would enjoy that walk for one second.”