On his final night in Doha, Ange Postecoglou suddenly remembered he had some shopping to do. His mind was still consumed by negative thoughts stemming from two uninspiring performances by the Socceroos against the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. In three months time he was expected to mastermind the Socceroos to Asian Cup glory on home soil. Dark clouds formed in his mind as he started to entertain the very real prospect of failure.
He snapped out of his doom-laden reverie. The Socceroos manager had promised his wife that he would bring back a souvenir from the Arabian Gulf. He left the air-conditioned comfort of his hotel room and made for the old souk.
Ange walked aimlessly around the souk in a state of distracted befuddlement when a local merchant jumped out and tried to sell him some dodgy Dead Sea tupperware.
Ange wasn’t impressed. He averted his gaze and made haste to get away from Arthur Daley’s Arab brother.
“Wait, don’t go! I can see that you’re only interested in the exceptionally rare. I think you’ll be most rewarded to consider this. Do not be fooled by its commonplace appearance.
This is no ordinary lamp! It once changed the course of a young man’s life. A young man, who like this lamp, was more than what he seemed.”
It was true. Just like the Socceroos, the lamp had a commonplace appearance.
“Do you think it can change the course of a football manager’s life?” Ange asked.
“Of course it can. Being a football manager is like being Scheherazade. Do you know who Scheherazade was?”
“No, but at a guess he sounds like someone who played with Georgi Kinkladze”
“Ho, ho, ho, you are a funny man. Scheherazade was the wife of Shahryar, a Persian King. Shahryar was a very, very jealous man. Upon discovering that his first wife was unfaithful to him, he had her beheaded. But it didn’t stop there. The king began to marry a succession of virgins. He would bed them and then behead them the following morning. One thousand virgin wives. But along came Scheherazade. On their wedding night she began telling Shahryar a tale, but she didn’t finish it. The entranced king postponed her execution so he could listen to the conclusion. The following night Scheherazade would end the tale and then begin a new tale. She repeated this for 1,001 nights.”
“Yes, I think I know how Scheherazade feels,” Ange responded. “Every match is like a tale and if it ends really badly I can lose my head. I also have something else in common with her. I don’t tell tales but I do write a column for Rupert Murdoch’s press in Australia. I’d rather visit the dentist to be honest, but I have to come across all sage like with sayings like.
As a rule of thumb, every win buys you extra seconds while every loss wipes off minutes.
The disparity is because success can have many fathers, while failure falls at the feet of just one person.
I can write this clichéd stuff in my sleep, but now my sleep is disturbed by Socceroos nightmares.”
Ange bought the lamp and retired to his hotel room. It didn’t look impressive but he couldn’t be bothered shopping anymore and it made for a good story to tell his wife when he got home.
He called room service and ordered a superb bottle of 2004 Chateau Margaux to be charged to the FFA account. When he started the bottle he was blown away by the classic elegance of the wine. How the wine’s blueberry, mocha and mint notes danced like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on his tongue and packed a finish longer than Charlie Yankos in the 1988 Bicentennial Cup.
He finished the bottle and turned his attention to the lamp.
Surely, it can’t be a magic lamp.
If he had three wishes what would they be?
How about getting Tommy Oar to look up and cross the ball properly, or getting Mile Jedinak to stop spraying passes like an out of control crop duster or magically healing Tom Rogic and getting him to play like the number 10 of his dreams.
He went over to his suitcase, unwrapped the gift to his wife and proceeded to give the lamp a vigorous rub… out popped a genie.
The genie laid out some simple conditions to Ange’s wish-making: Killing people, making people fall in love with you and bringing the dead back to life were strictly verboten.
“Other than that, you got it”
Ange thought of the list he had just compiled in his head. Bugger that, he thought.
He looked up at the genie and said,
“How about we start with the simple matter of Australia winning the 2015 Asian Cup and take it from there.”
Vale Robin Williams, the genius who played the merchant and the genie in the Disney version of this Socceroos tale.
