Many of you will know Harry Kewell as the ‘best Australian soccer player’ ever, as voted for during a 2012 contest. He played alongside some truly great Socceroos during his heyday and picked up more than a few tricks, but how have they translated to Harry Kewell's coaching career?
It’s always a bit of a gamble when players go into management, but we’d like to give Kewell a fair shake here and look back at some of the teams coached, what he achieved with those sides, and more.
July 14th, 2024. Kewell's Marinos side run out 4-1 winners, but it would be his last game in charge.
Harry Kewell's coaching career
The coaching career of Harry Kewell kicked off in 2017, three years after he retired from playing professionally. Well, he did manage the Watford Youth team from 2014 actually, but this wasn’t viewed as a ‘professional role’. However, come 2017 he stepped up and got his management career started with:
Crawley Town
Back in May 2017, Kewell took over the role as manager at Crawley Town – a struggling team in League Two. This made him the first Australian manager to have ever coached a professional team in England, although his time at Crawley Town was short-lived, and not overly successful either. The club finished 14th that season, although Kewell did manage to lead them to 10 wins in just 14 games for a brief period. Unfortunately, there was no consistency at the club while he was there, and when the next season got underway, it was clear that his heart was not in it.
He lasted just six games during the 2018/19 season, and Kewell made a not so surprising choice to leave the club. However, his choice of club was somewhat of a surprise, when he announced that he was taking over at another League Two team, Notts County. The reason this was so surprising is that Notts County was sitting in last place in the table when he took the reins in August 2018.
Notts County
Now we get to his spell at Notts County, which was rather sticky, to say the least. Kewell took over the role in August of 2018, at the very beginning of the season, but less than 3 months later, he was given his marching orders by the board. The news broke on November 13th that Kewell had been given the boot, which wasn’t a huge shock really given that he had managed to win just 3 out of 11 games, landing Notts County in 22nd place at that point. Fans were not overjoyed with some of the decisions he was making either, which didn’t make things particularly promising for Harry Kewell to stay at the club.
Once this occurred, Kewell decided he would take a bit of a break from coaching, which was probably for the best. It took him almost two years before he decided to manage another club, which occurred in August 2020 when he took the management position at Oldham Athletic. Again, this was a move to a League Two club, and he would actually become the fifth manager there over the previous 12 months – brave!
Oldham Athletic
Let’s enter the Oldham Athletic chapter now, shall we? So, on August 1st, 2020, Kewell was officially reported as being the new manager at the club. This was a completely clean slate for Kewell since the season had not yet started, although the contract he signed was only for a 12-month deal, so he needed to produce some magic in order to avoid another sacking. The first month didn’t go too well, going without a win in his initial six matches in charge. But surely, things could only get better, right?
Well, things did pick up, and his win rate at the club certainly improved from this poor start. Then again, things were very much on a rollercoaster style journey, with great performances one week, beating teams that were contending for promotion, followed by unbelievable losses the next. This didn’t delight the fans, and it certainly didn’t delight the owners of the club. Therefore, the inevitable came in March of 2021, where Kewell and his assistant were given the sack with Oldham sitting in 16th place.
Barnet
This time, Kewell had to eat a bit of humble pie and take a position at National League contenders, Barnet. For those who don’t know, this isn’t actually viewed as a professional league in England, as it is technically the fifth division. Then again, Kewell didn’t have a great track record, to put it bluntly, so what else could he do? He took over as manager at Barnet in June 2021, during the transfer window, which isn’t quite as important for non-league teams as it is for professional teams. In the opening game of the season, Kewell’s side was drummed by a score of 5-0 – not the best start!
Of the next six games, Kewell managed to draw two and lose four. Of course, having proceeded to put up a record of zero wins in seven games, Kewell was then relieved of his position from Barnet in September, with immediate effect.
Yokohama F. Marinos
As a club 80% owned by Nissan and 20% owned by the City Football Group, Yokohama FM would be expected to provide any manager with significant resources. On New Years' Eve 2023, Kewell became the J1 side's new manager, in what was a big move for someone so accustomed to the nether realms of English football management.
But despite having six weeks to prepare for his first game in charge, there would be no honeymoon period for the former Socceroo. Instead, his first outing saw the Marinos labour to a 2-2 draw against Bangkok United, after which they could only manage a 0-0 draw in 90 minutes for the second leg, and it needed a 120th-minute Anderson Lopes spot kick to settle the tie and seal progression.
In the league, Yokohama FM never picked up the run of wins they needed to topple Vissel Kobe at the J1 summit. A poor winless run of six league games in the spring of 2024 meant that everything – most of all Kewell's future in Japan – would likely rest on the outcome of the two-legged AFC Champions League final against Al Ain.
And Kewell's men could almost taste glory, with a 2-1 first leg win on home turf meaning that they needed just a draw in the Emirates to take the continental crown. They would go 2-0 down early on, but pull the tie back level on aggregate through Yan Matheus on 40′. That set the tie on a knife edge, but they crumbled in the desert air beyond the hour mark, conceding three times without reply, as Kodjo Laba's injury-time brace sealed the result.
Though the Marinos bounced back immediately with a 4-0 success, six defeats across the next eight league outings meant that there was no way back. Not even a 4-1 win over Kashima Antlers on July 14th could appease the decision makers above stairs, and Kewell was given his marching orders just 48 hours later.
Where to from here for Harry Kewell's coaching career?
Although Kewell's tenure at Yokohama FM ended after just seven months, it was more the fact that his team were a true ‘Jekyll and Hyde' outfit. That is reflected by his final record of 13-8-12 (for a 39.4% win rate), within which more than half (seven) of the 12 league games won or lost saw the winning team score three times or more.
Those wins provide some positives to suggest that Kewell hasn't burned all of his bridges in the Land of the Rising Sun, and anyone with an AFC Champions League final on their CV has to have some sort of competitive edge when applying for J1 clubs. A Japanese team with more modest expectations might be the order of the day, but that depends on just how long Kewell intends to wait for such a niche situation to arise.
Alternatively, Kewell might utilise his connections to former side Celtic in order to get a foothold back in Scottish football, assuming that EFL clubs are no longer on his radar.
