Wellington Phoenix coach Giancarlo Italiano on imposter syndrome, drive and the power of superstitions
In his first season as head coach of the Wellington Phoenix, Giancarlo Italiano guided the team into last year’s A-League semifinal in dazzling style, yet he’s still coming to terms to actually having the job. He tells Mark Geenty about imposter syndrome, drive and the power of superstitions.
Nearly an hour into a chat with Giancarlo Italiano at his local cafe at Petone, the man they call Chiefy remains disbelieving, borderline incredulous.
Having drained his cup of long black, extra shot with milk on the side and kept his audience of reporter and photographer entertained and engrossed in his remarkable footballing story, Italiano still shakes his head at the thought of being a second-year Wellington Phoenix head coach.
“When I got the job, that was a very, very surreal feeling. Even now, I still think they’re crazy to give me a job. It’s just so unrealistic for me to even get in this situation,” Italiano says. “I’m not an ex-player, I don’t have a profile, I think the last person who’s coached in the A-League with no playing experience was maybe Ernie Merrick [who had the Phoenix reins between 2013-16]…”
And yet here we are, in the city the 46-year-old born-and-raised Sydneysider now calls home, with his mum Luisa (who originally convinced him to cross the Tasman) and dog Barolo, a 4-year-old puggle named after a red wine. Italiano proved an instant hit with Phoenix fans, after taking the helm and guiding the side to the brink of a maiden A-League grandfinal at a packed Sky Stadium back in May.
Not bad for a former goalkeeper who gave up his dream of a pro career as a teenager, studied to be a criminal lawyer and stumbled into coaching at age 30 when there were no other candidates and his team-mates at Five Dock FC “forced me into it”.
Raised by an Italian father, Salvatore, and Peruvian mother – he blames them for his array of superstitions (more on them later) – Italiano’s winding path from Sydney to Wellington was shaped by personal tragedy which had a profound effect on his outlook and coaching philosophy, even before he’d taken charge of a football team.
The sudden death of his best mate Anthony Zaccagnino when both were in their mid-20s, followed by his father’s death two years later, were hugely significant and shaped Italiano over the next two decades.
“My whole life getting to this point now, it was really dictated by those big events, especially my friend, because we were inseparable,” Italiano says, carefully choosing his words amid long pauses.
“So after his death I was in denial for maybe two-three years. It was the first time anything significantly tragic had happened. I reflect on it now, I probably wasn’t prepared for it, I didn’t have any sort of resilience and sort of coping mechanisms. It took a long time for me to adjust.
“And then my father… he was older and had terminal cancer. I don’t want to say that was easier to take, but it was more manageable in the sense that I’ve just been through that big life event and you realise, this is life, right? It ends and there’s no actual blueprint. People suffer, that is part of life.
“I learned a lot about myself over those few years. I learned that if you hide and don’t confront life and its reality, then it will catch up with you regardless and hit you in the face. If you’re prepared for it, you can build some good attributes as a person, like resilience, and I’ve brought that into my coaching.”
The loss of his mate also brought about his nickname. As a joke Zaccagnino dubbed Italiano ‘Chief’ after Paul Harragon, the Australian rugby league hardman and star of The Footy Show. As their friend group gathered in the days after his death, Zaccagnino’s cousin suddenly called him Chief and the name stuck.
“I’ve met so many people that don’t even know my real name and just call me Chief. And then the Kiwis have now changed it into Chiefy. I didn’t like it when I first had the nickname because it was someone else’s, but over a period of time, people saying that nickname is always like a reminder of my mate, which is good, a nice thing.”
As he grieved and “lost my way”, Italiano already knew his playing career would not progress to a higher level. “I didn’t have the right temperament.”
He dabbled in a computer business and studied to be a criminal lawyer, eventually working in law firms while also playing social football.
Then he turned up with his mates at Five Dock FC after they lost a grandfinal the previous year and their coach had moved on.
“And then my friend goes, ‘You should be a coach, you’d be a good coach’. I had no interest, but no one wanted to coach, so I was like ‘all right, I’ll do it’. I’ll coach Sunday and I’ll play with another team on a Saturday. We won the grandfinal that year and then I was like, ‘I don’t mind this, it’s good fun’.”
Tactically Italiano found he was a natural, always looking to switch up and catch their opponents’ unawares, but coaching never loomed as a career. He was a goalkeeping coach in youth leagues then moved up the ranks as technical director, before answering a call from a mate to assist at glamour A-League club Sydney FC and its under-20s team.
That was where he met Ufuk Talay, who called him with a prospect that would change his life: would he move to Wellington to be an analyst for him at the Phoenix?
“I was done, I didn’t want to coach any more because I needed to focus on becoming an adult and making some money, get my practising certificate as a lawyer and then Uffie rang me.
“I wasn’t going to do it… and then my mum and my best mate both said the same thing: why would you do all this work for 12-14 years and not take a role? It’s what you want. Moving to another country, I was very hesitant but I was like, I’m just basically delaying the inevitable.
“I have to become a grown-up at some stage.”
After his first day in Wellington, when he dined with Talay on Cuba St, Italiano was hooked on the city and its scenery and vibe, even if the ferocity of the wind was alarming.
“I love how people are really laid back to deal with. I say, compared to Aussies you are more pragmatic, you know, I think even a little bit better sense of humour. And it’s become home now, you know, I brought my mum here, my dog as well. So that was a big move for me.”
Italiano was officially unveiled as Talay’s successor in April last year, when his former boss returned home to take the Sydney FC job and implored him to apply. Incredibly (to Italiano at least), it was his first professional head coaching role, 15 years or so since he first took the reins of that Sunday social team.
Four interviews and a power point presentation later, he had impressed Phoenix owner and chairman Rob Morrison so much that the job was his. Cue more disbelief.
“I still now feel as though it’s gonna be a rug pulled from under me. That’s a bit of imposter syndrome. I still feel that, which is not a bad thing.”
He may be overly self-deprecating, but Italiano knows what got him to this point. He is in talks with the club about extending his contract beyond this season, and is clear on his coaching philosophy.
“If I could boil it down to two things; one, I have experience in coaching. Even though it’s an amateur or semi-pro environment, a lot of experience with a lot of different people, different skill sets, different scenarios but ultimately the same story playing out, just with different characters.
“Two, because I have experienced it so much I don’t get fazed by much. That doesn’t mean I’m not emotional, because I am, but I don’t necessarily overreact to the noise and that’s a good skill set for your players to see.”
Onto those superstitions, then, for which Italiano became a source of increasing fascination as his team charged to the top of the A-League ladder and the Phoenix’s fan base swelled.
On the morning of home matches he must always hit golf balls at the driving range and take Barolo for a walk along Petone Beach. If he wears a shirt for a loss, he will never wear it again (a new black shirt for the derby match against Auckland FC was immediately retired after their 2-0 defeat). “It can be expensive,” he quips.
Then there’s the stranger ones. Once when he took a warmup session when Talay had Covid, and took off his shirt and had skins on underneath. They won the game so the skins remain (and the one time he didn’t wear them on match day, the team lost).
In the Sydney FC days he was conducting a team talk and someone accidentally turned the light switch off, then on. They won that game 2-0 so every halftime from then on, someone had to come in and turn the light on and off.
“That’s also having a Peruvian mum and an Italian father. They’re the two worst cultures for superstition,” he laughs. “It’s more about preparation, getting you in that mindset of preparing for a game and in a way it’s a good distraction because once you think about the superstition, you think about the game and you get ready for the game, you could almost say an anxiety coping mechanism.”
He may well be an accidental football coach, but it was clearly meant to be.
“So every year, I’ve never gone I’m going to make a career of this. I’ve always genuinely thought, whatever environment I go into, I want to improve people. Then after my second or third year of coaching there was a part of me that goes, ‘I can’t live without this. I’m going to do it regardless’.
“There was a year where I was technical director, I was working – I’m not joking – 50 hours a week. I got paid $2000 for the whole year and I didn’t even get upset. It wasn’t about the money, it was never about the money.
“But you still have to work and make a living, I had law and I was kicking that can down the road and every time I tried to pull out… you know that scene with Pacino in The Godfather, it would pull me back in. That’s exactly me in football.”
Wellington Phoenix coach Giancarlo Italiano on imposter syndrome, drive and the power of superstitions
In his first season as head coach of the Wellington Phoenix, Giancarlo Italiano guided the team into last year’s A-League semifinal in dazzling style, yet he’s still coming to terms to actually having the job. He tells Mark Geenty about imposter syndrome, drive and the power of superstitions.
Nearly an hour into a chat with Giancarlo Italiano at his local cafe at Petone, the man they call Chiefy remains disbelieving, borderline incredulous.
Having drained his cup of long black, extra shot with milk on the side and kept his audience of reporter and photographer entertained and engrossed in his remarkable footballing story, Italiano still shakes his head at the thought of being a second-year Wellington Phoenix head coach.
“When I got the job, that was a very, very surreal feeling. Even now, I still think they’re crazy to give me a job. It’s just so unrealistic for me to even get in this situation,” Italiano says. “I’m not an ex-player, I don’t have a profile, I think the last person who’s coached in the A-League with no playing experience was maybe Ernie Merrick [who had the Phoenix reins between 2013-16]…”
And yet here we are, in the city the 46-year-old born-and-raised Sydneysider now calls home, with his mum Luisa (who originally convinced him to cross the Tasman) and dog Barolo, a 4-year-old puggle named after a red wine. Italiano proved an instant hit with Phoenix fans, after taking the helm and guiding the side to the brink of a maiden A-League grandfinal at a packed Sky Stadium back in May.
Not bad for a former goalkeeper who gave up his dream of a pro career as a teenager, studied to be a criminal lawyer and stumbled into coaching at age 30 when there were no other candidates and his team-mates at Five Dock FC “forced me into it”.
Raised by an Italian father, Salvatore, and Peruvian mother – he blames them for his array of superstitions (more on them later) – Italiano’s winding path from Sydney to Wellington was shaped by personal tragedy which had a profound effect on his outlook and coaching philosophy, even before he’d taken charge of a football team.
The sudden death of his best mate Anthony Zaccagnino when both were in their mid-20s, followed by his father’s death two years later, were hugely significant and shaped Italiano over the next two decades.
“My whole life getting to this point now, it was really dictated by those big events, especially my friend, because we were inseparable,” Italiano says, carefully choosing his words amid long pauses.
“So after his death I was in denial for maybe two-three years. It was the first time anything significantly tragic had happened. I reflect on it now, I probably wasn’t prepared for it, I didn’t have any sort of resilience and sort of coping mechanisms. It took a long time for me to adjust.
“And then my father… he was older and had terminal cancer. I don’t want to say that was easier to take, but it was more manageable in the sense that I’ve just been through that big life event and you realise, this is life, right? It ends and there’s no actual blueprint. People suffer, that is part of life.
“I learned a lot about myself over those few years. I learned that if you hide and don’t confront life and its reality, then it will catch up with you regardless and hit you in the face. If you’re prepared for it, you can build some good attributes as a person, like resilience, and I’ve brought that into my coaching.”
The loss of his mate also brought about his nickname. As a joke Zaccagnino dubbed Italiano ‘Chief’ after Paul Harragon, the Australian rugby league hardman and star of The Footy Show. As their friend group gathered in the days after his death, Zaccagnino’s cousin suddenly called him Chief and the name stuck.
“I’ve met so many people that don’t even know my real name and just call me Chief. And then the Kiwis have now changed it into Chiefy. I didn’t like it when I first had the nickname because it was someone else’s, but over a period of time, people saying that nickname is always like a reminder of my mate, which is good, a nice thing.”
As he grieved and “lost my way”, Italiano already knew his playing career would not progress to a higher level. “I didn’t have the right temperament.”
He dabbled in a computer business and studied to be a criminal lawyer, eventually working in law firms while also playing social football.
Then he turned up with his mates at Five Dock FC after they lost a grandfinal the previous year and their coach had moved on.
“And then my friend goes, ‘You should be a coach, you’d be a good coach’. I had no interest, but no one wanted to coach, so I was like ‘all right, I’ll do it’. I’ll coach Sunday and I’ll play with another team on a Saturday. We won the grandfinal that year and then I was like, ‘I don’t mind this, it’s good fun’.”
Tactically Italiano found he was a natural, always looking to switch up and catch their opponents’ unawares, but coaching never loomed as a career. He was a goalkeeping coach in youth leagues then moved up the ranks as technical director, before answering a call from a mate to assist at glamour A-League club Sydney FC and its under-20s team.
That was where he met Ufuk Talay, who called him with a prospect that would change his life: would he move to Wellington to be an analyst for him at the Phoenix?
“I was done, I didn’t want to coach any more because I needed to focus on becoming an adult and making some money, get my practising certificate as a lawyer and then Uffie rang me.
“I wasn’t going to do it… and then my mum and my best mate both said the same thing: why would you do all this work for 12-14 years and not take a role? It’s what you want. Moving to another country, I was very hesitant but I was like, I’m just basically delaying the inevitable.
“I have to become a grown-up at some stage.”
After his first day in Wellington, when he dined with Talay on Cuba St, Italiano was hooked on the city and its scenery and vibe, even if the ferocity of the wind was alarming.
“I love how people are really laid back to deal with. I say, compared to Aussies you are more pragmatic, you know, I think even a little bit better sense of humour. And it’s become home now, you know, I brought my mum here, my dog as well. So that was a big move for me.”
Italiano was officially unveiled as Talay’s successor in April last year, when his former boss returned home to take the Sydney FC job and implored him to apply. Incredibly (to Italiano at least), it was his first professional head coaching role, 15 years or so since he first took the reins of that Sunday social team.
Four interviews and a power point presentation later, he had impressed Phoenix owner and chairman Rob Morrison so much that the job was his. Cue more disbelief.
“I still now feel as though it’s gonna be a rug pulled from under me. That’s a bit of imposter syndrome. I still feel that, which is not a bad thing.”
He may be overly self-deprecating, but Italiano knows what got him to this point. He is in talks with the club about extending his contract beyond this season, and is clear on his coaching philosophy.
“If I could boil it down to two things; one, I have experience in coaching. Even though it’s an amateur or semi-pro environment, a lot of experience with a lot of different people, different skill sets, different scenarios but ultimately the same story playing out, just with different characters.
“Two, because I have experienced it so much I don’t get fazed by much. That doesn’t mean I’m not emotional, because I am, but I don’t necessarily overreact to the noise and that’s a good skill set for your players to see.”
Onto those superstitions, then, for which Italiano became a source of increasing fascination as his team charged to the top of the A-League ladder and the Phoenix’s fan base swelled.
On the morning of home matches he must always hit golf balls at the driving range and take Barolo for a walk along Petone Beach. If he wears a shirt for a loss, he will never wear it again (a new black shirt for the derby match against Auckland FC was immediately retired after their 2-0 defeat). “It can be expensive,” he quips.
Then there’s the stranger ones. Once when he took a warmup session when Talay had Covid, and took off his shirt and had skins on underneath. They won the game so the skins remain (and the one time he didn’t wear them on match day, the team lost).
In the Sydney FC days he was conducting a team talk and someone accidentally turned the light switch off, then on. They won that game 2-0 so every halftime from then on, someone had to come in and turn the light on and off.
“That’s also having a Peruvian mum and an Italian father. They’re the two worst cultures for superstition,” he laughs. “It’s more about preparation, getting you in that mindset of preparing for a game and in a way it’s a good distraction because once you think about the superstition, you think about the game and you get ready for the game, you could almost say an anxiety coping mechanism.”
He may well be an accidental football coach, but it was clearly meant to be.
“So every year, I’ve never gone I’m going to make a career of this. I’ve always genuinely thought, whatever environment I go into, I want to improve people. Then after my second or third year of coaching there was a part of me that goes, ‘I can’t live without this. I’m going to do it regardless’.
“There was a year where I was technical director, I was working – I’m not joking – 50 hours a week. I got paid $2000 for the whole year and I didn’t even get upset. It wasn’t about the money, it was never about the money.
“But you still have to work and make a living, I had law and I was kicking that can down the road and every time I tried to pull out… you know that scene with Pacino in The Godfather, it would pull me back in. That’s exactly me in football.”
