MUSCAT IN

Melbourne Victory have found a replacement for their former manager Ange Postecoglou, as they have appointed Kevin Muscat in the role for the next two years. Postecoglou recently took over the job as the national team manager of Australia. Muscat has the experience of working under Postecoglou as an assistant for four years. The first match for Muscat as the Melbourne Victory manager will see him take on Wellington Phoenix. The club chairman Anthony Di Pietro has expressed his confidence that Muscat will remain as the manager even after two years.

Di Pietro did admit that Muscat will undoubtedly be considered for the national team manager position in the next four years. Australia have done extremely poorly in recent friendly and competitive matches, which led to the appointment of Postecoglou. Postecoglou is one of the highly rated coaches in Australia. He arrived only recently to Melbourne Victory with the hope of leading them to the title after having done the same with Brisbane Roar for two consecutive seasons. Muscat has said that he has learnt a lot from Postecoglou and he will not be trying to deviate from what is predecessor has taught him.

Melbourne Victory can be expected to play in a similar way to that under Postecoglou.

“As head coach, it’s not about being a favourite son, it’s about being a father figure. And we’ve given him the opportunity to write that [history] and we look forward to that and hope that this is a long-term relationship. In fact, dare I say, I hope he’s in contention for the next Socceroos job, that would be a demonstration of what has been achieved,” said Di Pietro. “My ego doesn’t tell me that I need to fracture what’s happened in the last 18 months and rebuild it,” said Muscat after taking over the reigns from Postecoglou.