Three weeks after being appointed, Crook is now heavily involved in the pre-season preparation of the team, which has two crucial Asian Champions League games scheduled next month ahead of the A-League season kicking off in October.

Crook suddenly quit the head coaching job at Sydney FC in November, 2012, after realising the job wasn't for him. He sees his main strengths as being in a supporting role and Wanderers needed a replacement after assistant Ante Milicic left to join the national team set-up under Ange Postecoglou.

The club was inundated with applications from coaches who wanted to work with Popovic, but Crook was headhunted by the club. He previously played with Popovic at Japanese club Sanfrecce Hiroshima and the pair were also briefly together on the Sydney FC coaching staff as assistants.

"I spoke to the boss [Popovic] on a few occasions about working here and I've got to be honest, it certainly wasn't something I was expecting to get back into," Crook said.

"But the more we spoke about the club and where he wanted to go with it and the different challenges, it was just something that was too good to say no to.

"When you're a head coach, you must have a clear understanding with your assistants. Ideally, you want someone who can be a sounding board and who is prepared to disagree with you.

"'Popa' said to me that at the end of the day his decision would be the final one, and that's what you expect to happen, but that he didn't want me to just sit there and say 'yes' to everything he said. If there's something I feel differently about, he wants me to say it.

"He said 'I might not necessarily go with it, but I need you to do that'. He's proved himself over the last couple of years and he and Ante had a really good partnership and I hope to be able to get to something like that stage with him.

"The opportunity to work alongside him and all the staff here, at a club that's been so successful in its first couple of years, is a great one for me."

Crook said he had known from back when he and Popovic were still playing that Popovic was going to be a success as a coach.

"Myself, 'Arnie' [Graham Arnold] and Popa were all living in each other's pockets at the same club in Japan," he said.

"You could tell back then Popa was going to make something out of himself in the management side of things, because he was a smart cookie and knew exactly what he wanted."

Crook said his own love of coaching had never gone away and that he just needed to be in the right role.

"I didn't feel I was the right person at Sydney FC and I would have been kidding myself to carry on," he said. "But I love coaching and I believe my strengths lie as an assistant coach and also in coaching younger players.

"I don't regret the decision I made there. It was tough, to be fair, a tough time, with a number of injuries to players and stuff. It's a big job, yeah.

"My aim with coaching is to make a good player better, by identifying what he needs to do to improve.

"It's a constant, day-to-day thing. It might just be a little thing that you give them at any time, but an important thing, and I believe I can help in that area. That's the thing I missed.

"I'll also be a bit of a buffer for the boss, because the players at this level have got to feel they can talk to you. There are certain things I'll be able to help them with and certain times when I'll have to say, 'look, you'd better go and see the gaffer about that'.

"For me, it's that coaching of players and helping them from day to day with their game that I missed."

Crook said, like everybody else, he had marvelled at the rapid progress of the Wanderers.

"Oh yeah, I've sat down and watched them on the box and seen the club grow from nothing into what they are now, and one thing the club have done is constantly improve," he said. "Hopefully, that will long continue."