The coach’s decision to step down before next year’s World Cup is puzzling but a bigger shock would have been if he had stayed on

Considering an increasingly uncomfortable and world-weary Ange Postecoglou has spent the past month throwing esoteric smoke bombs at questions about his future it hardly seems surprising that on Wednesday he announced his resignation as Socceroos coach. A bigger shock would have been to hear that he was staying on.

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Nevertheless, on the surface, his decision to leave the Socceroos a week after overseeing their qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Russia doesn’t make a lot of sense. Though it may be disingenuous on his part – given that he would have been heavily involved in all manner of discussions with Postecoglou over the past weeks and, indeed, years – even Football Federation Australia CEO David Gallop conceded this morning that he too was “puzzled” by it.

For most of us in the cheap seats it does indeed seem odd. You go to the back-breaking trouble of tearing down and then rebuilding a playing style in-line with an aspirational philosophy, you scour the world for overlooked Australian talent, you soak through business shirts from Kazakhstan to Bangkok, and you make yourself the target of the slings and arrows of both outrageous fortune and look-at-me punditry; and you do this all in the hope of steering your team to the World Cup finals, football’s biggest stage.

But then just when you’ve done the hardest bit, just when you’ve got them over the line despite all the public challenges and personal sacrifices along the way, you chuck it all in.

This isn’t the way these things normally happen. Coaches resign all the time, of course, but usually only when they notice the axe glinting above their heads. One suspects we’ve a lot to learn yet abut the dynamic between Postecoglou and his employers at FFA but there’s no suggestion at this time that Postecoglou’s position was in jeopardy.

So why has he quit?

For one thing, and this says much about his character, his determination to chart his own course and stick to it no matter what the weather throws at him, it was never all about the World Cup. “Bigger things [than World Cup qualification],” he said, “were driving me when I took this job and from that perspective I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do.”

Nevertheless, he said, his decision to stand down, a decision made in the best interests of him and his family, was just an instinct, “an instinct [that] it’s the right time for me, it’s the right time for the team, the organisation ... for me it feels like the right time.”

You can’t argue with that. Did anyone really want him to stick it out and take the Socceroos to the World Cup if his heart was not in it? That said, in a media-fed world that eschews nuance for click-bait extremes, it’s not the most conclusive of explanations and it will do nothing to prevent criticism and speculation: “Postecoglou’s a quitter, he can’t handle criticism, he’s got a big money job lined up already, he’s leaving his team in the lurch” – the responses can almost be scripted.

On the subject of criticism, at least, it does seem fair to say that Postecoglou struggles with it. During an often disappointing World Cup qualifying campaign Postecoglou seemed to get increasingly short and defensive as if taking personally any criticism of the team’s playing style, their lack of goals, their defensive vulnerabilities. Any veneer of equanimity dropped off him like rubble from a cliff-face the longer the qualifying rounds went on. He said when he took over as Socceroos coach in 2013 that he invited informed debate and criticism, that this made for a mature football nation. This didn’t always seem to be the case when put to the test.

That said, it makes little sense that criticism from the media – particularly ex-players-cum-pundits – would be his reason for standing down, especially as he has pointed out in the past his desire to coach in Europe. As he would well know, media scrutiny in the big European leagues will be like a blowtorch to the trousers compared to the partisan attentions of the Australian media who, for the most part, were behind the team.

Play Video 3:46 Ange Postecoglou quits as Socceroos coach – video

Be that as it may, Postecoglou has now gone and the search for a successor commences. Whoever that will be remains to be seen but it is fair to say that whoever it is they will find the Socceroos in good shape, certainly much better shape than Postecoglou found the national side back when he took over from Holger Osieck in October 2013.

In those intervening four years – years in which Australia, playing with a verve and boldness we hadn’t seen for a long time, won their first Asian Cup – Postecoglou dared to aim high. Having honed his philosophy at Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory, Postecoglou declared early his desire that Australia should refuse to accept its place as the kids’ table of world football, that it should strive to play the kind of sophisticated football that both entertains and challenges the very best.

You might argue that Australia doesn’t have the cattle to beat the best at their own game, but Postecoglou showed unwavering faith in his players and his systems. He showed his willingness to live and die by his convictions, and unlike most politicians he was into nation-building, planning for the future of the game in Australia long beyond his own tenure.

As Trent Sainsbury said on Twitter this morning, “The belief and confidence he’s instilled in this team will keep us on the path to great things.”