If you think Postecoglou doubted himself as the original critics thundered in, most notably ousted senior players who ruled the club from within, think again. ''Before I got the job, I told the board: 'If you give me this job, I'm going to change things. I'm going to do things so radically different to what has ever been done before that there will be a fallout,''' Postecoglou said this week. ''Once they gave me the job, I took that as a brief to do what I wanted to do. It never bothered me to make those changes because it was never personal. In my journey as a coach, I now understand I'm not the coach for every kind of player. It was just a matter of seeing who wanted to stay and do things my way. ''Some high-profile players left, said some things, and even though we finished that year poorly, it didn't take up much of my time. I'd already started thinking about what we were going to build.'' If it makes him sound authoritarian, even dictatorial, Postecoglou couldn't care less. He arrived in Queensland with a bloody-minded idealism, and decided he would live or die by his vision of creating a football utopia. By his own reckoning, he's not even halfway there. ''We had success last year, that's true, but I'd say we're only about 25 per cent through,'' he said.

''I still don't feel we're playing at our full potential. There's no way that just a year from when we started playing this system that the players could completely understand what we want them to do. That's going to take three to five years. ''And that's just one side of my vision. As yet, we haven't even got the facilities to lay the foundations we'd like to help us build a long-lasting culture. I want to develop players even further, players who we can sell to top clubs overseas.'' Does that mean the Roar will just become another production line? ''It's more than that, but producing elite players should be something every club should be aspiring to, and I don't see it as a bad thing,'' he said. ''Our best players will always be going overseas, and I want Brisbane to produce Australia's best players, ones who can go all the way in Europe. ''At the same time, I want Brisbane to be competitive … Can it be done? I think so.''

Brisbane lost several key players during the off-season, such as Matt McKay, Kosta Barbarouses and Jean Carlos Solorzano, yet Postecoglou feels his team ''has improved again'' after more targeted recruiting. ''That's what we want our system to be. It has to be good enough to cover the loss of any individuals,'' he said. ''Don't forget, Barbarouses and Solorzano were virtually unknown when they joined us. It was only because of what they did … that people think of them as a loss. It just means we have to find new players to replace them, which we have.'' And contrary to what many sceptics think, Postecoglou believes Australian juniors, despite their unskilled reputation, are extremely capable of adapting to his Barcelona-inspired philosophy. ''When I was coaching our national youth teams for seven years, I saw Australian kids were actually quite capable of doing it. The key point is to change the players' philosophy,'' he said. Loading

''Last year, we started pre-season before anyone else and put in a massive effort to bed down our tactics and style of game. ''Within four or five weeks, I could see they were grasping it, but it wasn't until halfway through the year that we really started to play the football we wanted. Australian players are definitely good enough, they just need to be shown the way.''