As the Socceroos prepare for tomorrow night's World Cup qualifier against Bangladesh in Dhaka, the "hard arse" coach credited with helping turn Australian soccer from "forgotten game to unforgettable glory" has set his sights far beyond this match.

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"I'd like to win the World Cup. I think most people will see that as a crazy statement right now but I've got three years to go for it, you never know," Ange Postecoglou told Australian Story.

Les Murray, former presenter of SBS's World Game program, says in the two years since Postecoglou took over as team manager, the Socceroos have gone from "the bottom of the toilet" to a team that "made me very proud to be an Australian".

He says he is proud of "their capacity to have a go and not fear anyone. And that's the way I expect Australian teams to play".

Postecoglou says of his style: "I wanted to lead an attacking team. That sat better with me as a person, my personality."

Postecoglou began shaping his vision as a young player with South Melbourne Hellas.

Murray first spotted Postecoglou as "an attacking player" in the mid-1980s at South Melbourne.

"He was very, very quick and he had a long mullet flying behind his head as he galloped up the field," Murray recalled.

Mike Petersen, friend and former South Melbourne player, says it "wasn't cool to play soccer when Ange and I were growing up".

"It was called either kiss chasey or wogball. Kiss chasey because after the boys scored a goal everyone would be hugging and kissing and wogball because only the ethnics played it," he said.

Postecoglou as a five-year-old, holding up his immigration number on arrival in Melbourne from Athens by boat in 1970. ( Australian Story )

In the 1950s and '60s, waves of European migrants brought footballs in their luggage. They formed football clubs as weekend refuges from the daily struggles of assimilating into a new culture.

The Postecoglou family arrived in Melbourne by boat in 1970 after father Jim lost his business following the 1967 Greek military coup.

Young Ange was only five when photographed holding his immigration number "24" to his chest on arrival.

"As an adult, I realised the sacrifices my parents made and why they made them," Postecoglou said.

"But as a kid I just wanted to fit in and the best way to fit in was sport."

Postecoglou went on to have a winning career at South Melbourne Hellas, first as a player and then as a coach.

Under Postecoglou's management it was the most successful club in the country, winning the right to play in the inaugural World Club Championship in Brazil, against some of the best club teams and managers in the world.

Postecoglou says coaching against the legendary Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson was a seminal moment in his career.

"I stared down the beast. After that I had nothing to fear," he said.

His successes at South Melbourne Hellas led to Postecoglou's appointment as the national youth coach.

But a series of failures in qualifying for the Youth World Cup culminated in an eviscerating interview with Murray and Craig Foster on SBS's World Game program.

"I remember Craig walking into the studio saying 'I'm going to have a go, I'm going to grill him. He can't get away with this'. And I said, 'go for your life'. And he did," Murray recalled.

Murray says he was criticised for letting the interview run. But nearly 10 years later it is still talked about as "an iconic event in football television history".

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Soon after, Postecoglou was sacked and found himself "unemployable" until a chance encounter gave him the opportunity to mould a team that would "explode onto the pitch ... and create a piece of history".

That team was the Brisbane Roar. But for Postecoglou "it could have been any team".

"I wanted to leave a mark, and part of that was the way the game was played," he said.

It was a difficult transition.

Under Ange Postecoglou, the Socceroos are now champions of Asia ( Getty Images: Robert Cianflone )

"He did a big clean-out of our team. He moved on people that he thought didn't fit in at the club and brought in his own players," said Matt McKay, of Brisbane Roar.

The brief was to play attacking, possession-based football.

The Roar under Postecoglou won back-to-back championships and a streak of 36 consecutive games undefeated, a record that was "even internationally unique".

Not long after, Postecoglou was appointed to turn his team selection and training blueprint to the floundering Socceroos, which earlier this year delivered the team their biggest trophy ever — the Asian Cup.

"No-one would ever have said we'd have won the Asian Cup 'cause we're Australian and it's soccer. And we're not supposed to win. But that's what we've done. That's what Ange has done," said Socceroos star Tim Cahill.

Now the champions of Asia, the Socceroos are no longer seen as underdogs. The expectation is now to win and to keep on winning.

Watch the full story on Australian Story on iview.