Ange Postecoglou Walks Back His Second-Year Trophy Line

Ange Postecoglou has recast his “always win in my second year” line as a message to Tottenham, not a rule. The new Al-Nassr coach said the vow was for a club that had gone 17 years without a trophy, and that Celtic had already given him a double in year one.

He said it in his first sit-down as Al-Nassr coach, published by the Saudi Pro League on 10 July 2026, a week after he landed in Riyadh. The club that hired him are defending a league title. Year two is not the product they bought.

He Built the Line for a Club That Did Not Win

The original burst came on 15 September 2024, after a 1-0 home loss to Arsenal and a grim start to his second Premier League season. Postecoglou said he would correct himself. He did not usually win things. He always won things in his second year. Nothing had changed. He added that he does not say things unless he believes them.

Two days later he was asked to walk it back and refused. He said he had stated a fact, and asked whether he was supposed to lie. English football heard a boast. He heard a record. That split is why the sentence stuck to him for two years, through a European final, a sacking, a 39-day disaster at Nottingham Forest, and a July move to Saudi champions Al-Nassr.

That quote was when people didn’t believe I could win anything because I was at a club, Tottenham, that hadn’t won anything for 17 years, hadn’t won a European trophy for 40 years. And I was in my second year. When I was at Celtic, I won a double in my first year. So, I think the reason I made that statement was I wanted to make sure that people understood that I knew we could win something at Tottenham, a club that wasn’t recognised for winning things. So, for me, it doesn’t matter, first year, second year, third year. Every year I coach, I want to win things.

Ange Postecoglou, Al-Nassr head coach, Saudi Pro League interview

He also said winning is not the only test. How the team wins, and how it plays, still matters to him. That is the part of the old line that never fitted on a banner. It is the part he is selling in Riyadh, where Jorge Jesus had already won the league and the brief is to go again, in public, with Cristiano Ronaldo in the side.

A Second-Year Trophy at Almost Every Stop

The sentence travelled because the ledger backed it. From South Melbourne through Brisbane Roar, Yokohama F. Marinos and Celtic, a trophy arrived in a second season often enough that he could say it out loud at Tottenham and mean it. The second-year habit that followed him was never a myth. It was a pattern with one loud Scottish exception, and then a European cup that still could not keep him in the job.

THE SECOND-YEAR LEDGER

Australia’s Asian Cup in 2015 sat in the same window, two years after he took the national job in October 2013. Yokohama’s 2019 title was the club’s first in 15 years. Brisbane went unbeaten for 36 games on the way to that first championship. The pattern is real. It is also finished as a public alibi, because the next employer already has a title to defend.

Celtic Handed Him Silver in Year One

His own correction starts in Glasgow. Celtic appointed him on 10 June 2021 after Rangers had taken the Scottish title, and he left on 30 June 2023 after 113 matches. Year one produced the Premiership and the League Cup. Year two produced the treble, with the Scottish Cup added to another league and another League Cup.

That is the double he cited in Riyadh. It is also why the Tottenham line was never a law. He said so at the time, in a quieter register than the clip that went around. In 26 years of managing, he said, most of the success had come in a second year, not all of it, and sometimes it had come in a first year or a third. Celtic was the proof he now wants on the record before Al-Nassr’s first winter.

Parkhead was the job that made English clubs listen. Tottenham hired him on 1 July 2023. Forest’s own appointment note later recorded a fifth-place finish in that first Spurs season, which is the version of year one that did not need a slogan. Year two needed one, because the league table was already ugly and the club had not lifted a major trophy since the 2008 League Cup.

Sixteen Days After Bilbao, Tottenham Moved On

On 21 May 2025 Tottenham beat Manchester United 1-0 in Bilbao and put the Europa League on his honours list. It was the club’s first major trophy in 17 years and its first European title since the 1984 UEFA Cup. He had said the quiet part in September and then cashed it in May. At the victory parade he told supporters that season three would be better than season two.

Tottenham sacked him on 6 June 2025, 16 days after the final and two years to the day after the club had announced him. The board said it was one of the toughest decisions it had to make, then pointed at the league. Spurs finished 17th with 38 points, lost 22 of 38 matches, and, in the club’s own arithmetic, took 78 points from their previous 66 Premier League games. The European night did not cover that.

THE LINE, THE CUP, THE EXIT

1. 15 September 2024: Says he always wins things in his second year after a 1-0 home loss to Arsenal.
2. 21 May 2025: Tottenham beat Manchester United 1-0 in the Europa League final in Bilbao.
3. 6 June 2025: Tottenham sack him 16 days after the final, citing the 17th-place league finish.
4. 9 September 2025: Nottingham Forest appoint him as head coach.
5. 18 October 2025: Forest sack him after 39 days and eight games without a win.
6. 3 July 2026: Al-Nassr appoint him on a two-year deal as Jorge Jesus’s successor.

He left north London with 101 matches on the clock and a European trophy that still sits in the cabinet. The second-year guarantee had been kept and then spent. Season three never started.

Forest Cut the Clock at 39 Days

Forest hired him on 9 September 2025 and dismissed him on 18 October, 20 minutes after a 3-0 home loss to Chelsea. The club said he had been relieved of his duties after a series of disappointing results. He won none of eight matches, lost six and drew two, and took one point from five Premier League games. Transfermarkt logs the spell at eight matches and 0.25 points per game.

It was the shortest reign of any permanent Premier League manager. There was no second year to wait for, and no foundation season to point at. Months later he said on The Overlap that the move had been a bad decision, that he should never have gone in, and that he would not hide behind a lack of time. That is the other half of the Riyadh rewrite. A man who once asked for a second year has now said, in public, that some jobs do not get one.

The gap that followed was the first long pause in two decades of work. He sat in a television studio for the 2026 World Cup, then took the Al-Nassr post on 3 July on a two-year contract through June 2028. On The Howie Games he said Ronaldo, and the chance to stand close to another long career, was part of the pull. He also said he had heard from double-digit clubs and given serious thought to half a dozen. The one he chose already had a championship to defend, and no patience for a foundation year.

Al-Nassr Is Asking for the Title Now

The Saudi Pro League called it Al-Nassr’s first title defence in seven years. Jesus, in Postecoglou’s words, did an outstanding job last season, and the club is ready to go to the next level, which is why he is there. Every year is new, he said. He starts each one wanting it to be the best he has had, for him, for the club, and for the people he works with.

The opening run has matched the brief. Transfermarkt has him at seven matches, six wins and one defeat. The league column is 5 wins from 6 and 15 points. The King’s Cup column is a 4-1 win at Al-Diriyah on 18 August.

AL-NASSR UNDER POSTECOGLOU

• 15 August: Al-Nassr 3-0 Al-Fateh in the league opener, with Ronaldo absent after his wedding.
• 18 August: Al-Diriyah 1-4 Al-Nassr in the King’s Cup round of 32.
• 21 August: Al-Riyadh 0-4 Al-Nassr.
• 25 August: Al-Ettifaq 2-3 Al-Nassr, a comeback finished by two Sadio Mané goals.
• 28 August: Al-Nassr 2-1 Al-Taawoun.
• 5 September: Al-Ittihad 2-1 Al-Nassr, the first league defeat.
• 9 September: Al-Nassr 2-1 Abha, with Ronaldo’s header taking him to 979 career goals.

After Abha they sat on 15 points, level with Al-Hilal and Al-Qadsiah. The club posted him as Saudi Pro League coach of the month for August, a first-month prize that does not care about second-year folklore.

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The joke still travels. If the title slips, wait until next season, the line that made him famous will be waiting, and someone will put it in Ronaldo’s mouth for him. He has already tried to close that door. First year, second year, third year, he wants to win things, and Al-Nassr play Al-Khaleej on 12 September with an Asian Champions League Elite campaign opening behind it. The old sentence still gets laughs. The new job does not run on it.