I didn’t think I was going to be a full-time football coach, but I started at the German FA working with our youth teams before getting involved with the national side which was very special indeed. 

During the ’90s you then had two spells in Turkey with Fenerbahçe and Kocaelispor, with time in Japan at Urawa Red Diamonds in between. How did you evolve as a coach during that period?
Working in various countries has helped me develop as a coach as you come across different mentalities, styles of play and environments. If you are open-minded you can pick up a lot which is beneficial to you.

At Canada you created “Holger’s Heroes” when you won the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Talk us through that tournament and what was the key to success?
Canada was a similar situation as it is here in Australia. Most players played abroad and it was often very tough to get them across to Canada. The Gold Cup itself was good as I had the players together for three and a half weeks, and we started improving from game to game. That time helped with the understanding between everyone and I was able to get my message across. At the tournament we came up against Mexico, who were and still are the powerhouse of CONCACAF, so to beat them in the quarter-finals was tremendous. Mexico didn’t know what happened, they couldn’t believe it! We won with a Golden Goal through a counter-attack. I was jumping up and down with joy and the Mexicans were stunned! Their coach was just sitting there shaking his head.  

During the ’90s you coached two national sides and five club sides in a single decade. Why did you have such a steady rotation of jobs in the period?
There are various reasons. You are often on a two-year contract and it is a question of staying on or not. For example, when I was at Fenerbahçe I got an offer to coach in Japan, so I said to my wife, “Let’s do something new and move to Japan”. Again it was a two-year contract, so I went back to Turkey again [to Kocaelispor], where I managed to win the Turkish Cup – the first trophy in the club’s history. I then left Turkey in 1998 as my contract was up again and I got a call from the Canadian association president who I have known for several years. He was Scottish and rang me to say [in bad Scottish accent], “Holger, we need a new first team coach and I think you’re the right man for us”. I said, “What are you talking about, I don’t want to go to Canada, I want to stay in the club business”. He said, “NO, you have no option. You have to come!” [laughs]. We then had a meeting in London and we agreed on a contract and looking back it was a good decision. It opened up a new world to me where we played against the likes of USA and Mexico. It is always good to enrich your stock of experience in new areas. We won the Gold Cup, and to prove that was no fluke we finished third two years later. We only lost on penalties in the semis to USA and in the third/fourth place play-off we played South Korea, where Guus Hiddink was the coach. We beat them 2-1 and Guus was not happy. After that he took the entire squad out of the domestic competition so he could have a three-month camp. From there he built his World Cup squad, but the starting point was the defeat against us.

You’ve done plenty of youth development work, most notably as director of the FIFA Technical Department. What did that FIFA role entail exactly?
The role gave me the opportunity to go to all the different World Cups, from Under-17s up to the senior level, plus the Club World Cup and Confederations Cup. When you get to follow these events and you’re in charge of the analysis of that, then it is amazing what you discover. I got to make the comparison between the South American, European and Asian approaches to the game. That is really helpful and again it enriches your assessment of global football.

What did you make of the Australian teams while you were in that FIFA role?
The first time I saw an Australian team in that role was the Under-20 team over in Holland when Ange [Postecoglou] was in charge. I was quite impressed and they were quite unlucky not to get through their group. The performance of the team was good. I was further impressed with the Australian team at the Confederations Cup in 2005 when they lost to Germany, but they really had a good game. 
I also saw the Socceroos at the 2006 and 2010 World Cups. I was in charge of doing the analysis in the game against Ghana in South Africa. So over the years I’ve got a good idea of Australian football at a national level.

You’re the Socceroos coach now. When you were named it certainly caught us by surprise! Did the ‘Holger Who?’ reaction bother you at all?
Not at all. If you were in Europe and you ask people about Australian managers they would also have a question mark behind the name. So it didn’t both me at all. I was a technical director at FIFA and the only involvement I had with Australian football was with Urawa Red Diamonds on a club level when we played Sydney FC. I don’t feel inferior to have this kind of reaction. I’m not Ferguson, as everyone knows him, or Mourinho. 

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