Aussie takes reins at Beckham’s ambitious Salford City
Ian Chadband |
Peter Cklamovski has become the latest Australian to take the reins of an English league soccer club, appointed by the David Beckham-owned Salford City as the man to take the ambitious fourth-tier outfit to new heights.
The 47-year-old Cklamovski, best known as Ange Postecoglou’s right-hand man in the Socceroos’ Asian Cup success and Yokohama F.Marinos’ J-League triumphs, has been making his name in the international game as Malaysia’s national team boss
Now he’s been snapped up by Salford, who are owned by a consortium led by former England and Manchester United stars Beckham and Gary Neville, who have been at the heart of trying to turn the club from the Greater Manchester area into a powerhouse of the English game.
Another former England great Paul Scholes is the club’s football advisor and was instrumental in snapping up Cklamovski who describes the former Socceroos, Tottenham and Nottingham Forest boss Postecoglou as his mentor.
Sharing the same belief in attacking football as the man with whom he worked closely for 15 years, Cklamovski was hailed by Scholes as the outstanding candidate for the Salford job.
“The biggest thing was the style of play, he wants us to score goals, he wants us to be ruthless, he’s a clear identity of what sort of team they’re gonna be, and that is something we really wanted,” said Scholes.
Cklamovski takes over from Karl Robinson, who was sacked at the start off the month after Salford had been beaten in the League Two play-off final and failed to make it into the third tier.
That sacking gives an idea of the pressure that Cklamovski will face at go-ahead Salford, who’ve been a big story in the English game for a dozen years since a group of ex-Manchester United stars — Gary and Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs and Scholes — took over the club.
He’s now doubled the number of Australian managers in the Football League, and will cross swords with his compatriot Jon Brady, who led Port Vale to the FA Cup quarter-finals last season, in League Two.
“I’m here with a great opportunity to do something special, and it’s a great challenge,” said Cklamovski.
“The owners have got lofty ambitions, the club’s got big aspirations to achieve something special and that resonates with me.”
Cklamovski’s coaching journey went hand-in-hand with Postecoglou’s as he worked with Australia’s most successful soccer boss at junior national level and was alongside him as Brisbane won the A-League in 2011 and Australia lifted the Asian Cup four years later.
“I’m always in contact with him,” Cklamovski told the BBC. “He’s given sound feedback on many things on my coaching journey, this (job at Salford) being one of them.”
They had another ground-breaking partnership at Yokohama, where they led the team to a first Japanese title in 15 years, before going it alone to manage Shimizu S-Pulse, Montedio Yamagata and FC Tokyo in Japan.
He left Tokyo in November 2024 to take on the Malaysian team, who went on to achieve their highest FIFA world ranking in more than 20 years.
AAP