Ange Postecoglou says he "gave up the fight" of trying to change football in Australia and believes the game will never really take off Down Under because Australians "at their core" are not interested in embracing it.
The Tottenham head coach was in charge of Australia -- who face England at Wembley on Friday -- from 2013 and led the Socceroos to an inaugural Asian Cup win in 2015.
He resigned two weeks after qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, and says he has no regrets about walking away and would never return to the job in future.
“I walked away from a World Cup. We qualified and I walked away," Postecoglou said. “The reason I walked away was I just didn’t enjoy what I was doing.
“I think I’ve said all along, it’s not just doing the job and winning games of football. It’s got to be a higher purpose and my higher purpose in Australia was to change the game. I just don’t think that will happen.
“Maybe that’s just me, not being cynical, but I gave up that fight.
“It’s a much easier space for me to live in because I was so frustrated for so long. It was my biggest frustration.
“One of my major drivers for doing what I did was to do that – to change football in Australia. And that’s the reason I left. I felt I hadn’t made an impact at all.
“That’s easier for me to deal with than to think maybe I still can now with what I’m doing. I just think I’d be disappointed, so I’d prefer to think it’s not going to happen.”
Postecoglou believes the strength of Aussie Rules, rugby union and rugby league are barriers to growing football Down Under and says the country will never take "the necessary steps" to compete in a hugely competitive global field.
“If I can compare [Australia] to a country like Japan who also have the tyranny of distance and baseball’s pretty strong, they plant a lot of resources into football and you can see that that’s making an impact. I don’t see Australia down that road,” said the 58-year-old.
“When you look at what the Matildas did at the [Women’s] World Cup, unbelievable … but you still won’t see an influx of resources to the game. You won’t. I guarantee it.
“They’ll build stadiums and other codes will use them. I just don’t think the nation as a whole has that inside them to understand you can make an impact on the world of football but it requires a kind of nationalistic approach that I just don’t think Australians at their core are really interested in.”
Postecoglou is also conscious that his own success in Europe with Celtic and now Spurs is one of the only factors in increasing interest in football in Australia.
“You guys [the media] are only talking about it because of me!" he said. "When I coached [the Australian national team] in England seven years ago at Sunderland, some of you were probably there. But you just discovered me a year ago, mate. In your consciousness.
“That’s my theory actually. If we ever discover aliens the trick will be we’ll find out they’ve been living amongst a long time. That’s kind of me. That’s why I’ve got the advantage. I know all about you, you don’t know enough about me.”
Asked if he would be interesting in returning to national team management with England in future, Postecoglou added: “Stranger things have happened but no. They’ve got a fantastic manager and I’m eight games into a Tottenham career. That’s how I think.”
