Jackson Irvine was one of the earliest voices who backed Ange Postecoglou to succeed in European football.
The Australian international made a handful of appearances for The Hoops but has since gone on to have a successful career in the game in Scotland, Germany and England, playing for clubs such as Hibs, St Pauli and Hull City, amongst others.
As well as that, the 29-year-old has had a fantastic international career, having been capped 49 times for Australia, leading him to know a lot about current Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou.
Since his arrival in Glasgow, the former Socceroos boss has become a household name. Still, many Celtic fans knew next to nothing about ‘Big Ange’ while he was managing in the J-League with Yokohama F. Marinos, who he led to a league championship.
Irvine appeared on the popular podcast Open Goal and gave a fantastic insight into his former international boss before being appointed Celtic boss.
Video of Jackson Irvine talking about Ange Postecoglou on Open Goal pic.twitter.com/UFnGj0Ohun
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His comments were pretty near the mark, as he absolutely called it spot on when discussing Ange Postecoglou as a top coach, which he has had a chance to reflect on.
“It went viral a couple of times because it went viral the first time just out of, like, that’s a bit weird. How’s he seen that one coming?”, said Jackson Irvine speaking on the Socceroos Podcast.
“It was so funny. I did that interview with the Open Goal guys; I’ve known them for a long time. Obviously, they were asking about my career, and I spoke about Ange and how I’d love to see him in Europe, I think he’d be really successful and all this.
“And then when he got linked to the Celtic job, it (the interview) started getting shared. I was just getting slaughtered by people, just being like, ‘oh, Jackson Irvine, he says he’s good. So he must be great. Like, who the hell is this guy? What does he know; this is Celtic it’s not bloody Ross County’.
“I was just getting absolute pelters, and then about two months later, it started getting shared again, and everyone was like, right, maybe he kind of understood what he was talking about. But yeah, it was absolutely crazy how that came together in such a short space of time.
“The success he has had there is unsurprising from a lot of people’s perspectives in terms of what we knew he would bring to a club like that.
“But it wasn’t an easy one to go into and to now be managing in the Champions League at the Bernabeu; it’s absolutely immense for Australian football to have someone who has been a huge contributor to football in our country representing us on arguably the highest level of football in the world.”
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It seemed like so long ago that Postecoglou was appointed as the Celtic boss, and nobody could have predicted what would follow.
At the time, there was deep division amongst the Celtic support, but he united the team and supporters and instantly brought success back to Celtic, winning the league and league cup in his maiden season.
