‘Part of his story’: Ange’s reveal on managing Ronaldo… and ‘half-dozen’ jobs he passed up

Ange Postecoglou has opened up on what motivated him to move to Saudi Arabia and coach football icon Cristiano Ronaldo, after the Australian manager marked his first month in charge of Al-Nassr with another award.

Postecoglou has made a stunning start to his time with the Saudi powerhouse, winning all five of his competitive matches across the Pro League and King’s Cup.

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Speaking to popular Fox Sports AFL and cricket commentator Mark Howard on The Howie Gamespodcast, the 61-year old, who had seen stints at Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest end in acrimonious circumstances in the last 18 months, said the chance to manage the final years of Ronaldo’s celebrated career was too tempting to pass up.

“The fact I’m going to share a dressing room with one of the greats, I make no sort of secrets about it – it was one of the enticements of the job,” he said.

“When I reflect on my career, what stands out for me is that I’ve been unbelievably blessed in being part of other people’s journeys.

“With the Socceroos, I worked with arguably our greatest ever player in Timmy Cahill, so I’m a small part of his story.

“Sonny (South Korea and former Spurs star Son Heung-min), the greatest ever Korean player, I’m a small part of his story.

“So, there’s no doubt, Cristiano Ronaldo’s here, you kind of go ‘I can become a small part of his story as well’.

“And not from a selfish point of view, but for my own kind of life’s journey, of everything I wanted to do since I was a kid … that was part of the attraction.

“Not that they’ll tell my story alongside it, but I can tell that story, and that was a part of it as well.”

The interview was conducted in the early stages of Postecoglou’s time at Al-Nassr, before his first competitive game at the helm and after Ronaldo bowed out of international football at the World Cup.

The pair haven’t always seen eye to eye in his first months at the helm, with Postecoglou first leaving him out of his first two games before benching him at half time of a clash with Al-Ettifaq, which Al-Nassr went on to win 3-2 despite being 2-0 down at the time.

He revealed he had had “half a dozen” alternative job offers after being brutally sacked as Nottingham Forest manager in October last year after just 39 days in charge.

Postecoglou’s winning start has seen him named the Saudi Pro League’s manager of the month, in identical fashion to his spectacular start at Spurs in 2023.

He became the first ever manager to win the gong in his first two months at the helm after steering Spurs to a table-topping six wins and two draws from his first eight games, before fading late in the 2023/24 season to finish fifth.

The Australian was then axed after a disastrous 2024/25 Premier League season, mere weeks after leading the club to its first silverware in decades with a Europa League triumph.

Following the twin Premier League stints at Spurs and Forest, Postecoglou said the move to a lower-profile league was never an issue.

“People say “it’s not in Europe, it’s not a higher profile league”, but I’ve always railed against people who are snobbish about certain leagues and everything,“ he said.

“I wasn’t going to turn around and say “that’s a backwards step for me”. I never see things that way.

“I think, is there an opportunity there? Can I make an impact? Would I be excited about the prospect of doing it?

“It ticked those boxes for me, because it’s a league that’s obviously invested a lot of money, there’s some top managers here, some top players here. The chance to be a part of that was significant.”

He added that accepting the Forest job so soon after his Spurs heartbreak had been an unwise move – that even his wife warned him against.

“Everyone around me, including my wife, said don’t do it,” Postecoglou admitted.

“I ignored all of them and I said “No, I know the challenge and I love the challenge”.

“I thought it was a club where I could make an impact – but you know when you don’t fit and I felt that from the first day.

“It was quite obvious that this was not the opportunity.

“It was probably the worst three hours of my professional life when I got sacked. I paid a penance for that decision.”

Despite the wolves circling after a poor start to his Forest tenure, Postecoglou revealed the axe falling immediately after a 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea took him by surprise.

I literally walked in after the game, went to the coaches’ room, and the sporting directors came in,” he said.

“I wasn’t even thinking they were going to sack me, I was thinking about the game – we weren’t playing too badly, we just needed a goal.

“(I) get sacked in that room, and I was like, “Alright, I’m out of here”.

“I walk out the door and literally all the media are there. They’ve already been informed.”

Postecoglou also told Howard the long-standing comparisons to iconic television football coach Ted Lasso irritates him, and that he had never watched the award-winning Apple TV program.

He said he felt the comparison to the American coach who switched from gridiron to coaching AFC Richmond in a fictional Premier League was demeaning.

“That guy came from a different code … I’ve come from the same code, do you understand?” he said.

“I know it’s a different country, but football is my game.

“I haven’t come from cricket into football.

“That annoys me. And because it annoys me, I didn’t watch it (the series).”

Despite the undefeated four-win start, Al-Nassr sit second on the Pro League table on goal difference to rivals Al-Hilal, who signed Arsenal star Gabriel Martinelli on a record $112 million transfer fee.

Their next match, against Al-Ittihad, is on Sunday morning (AEST).

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