A-League coach drops one of the strangest quotes EVER in football – and it’s kind of amazing
Adam Griffiths has developed a penchant for entertaining press conference answers in his brief stint as Perth Glory interim boss, but he may have just topped the lot with one of the strangest quotes you will ever hear from a football coach.
The 46-year-old is a shoo-in to be handed the full-time role, having now registered three consecutive victories, with the latest potentially the most impressive of the lot.
Griffiths’ Glory side beat Western Sydney Wanderers 1-0 on Friday night AEDT, thanks to a goal from Sebastian Despotovski, as they got the job done despite playing with 10 men for over 45 minutes following two yellow cards for midfielder Trent Ostler.
Inevitably, Griffiths was asked the obvious question about where things were at in terms of him taking the job on a permanent basis – and his response was something truly bizarre.
Coach channels Zlatan, drops most bizarre A-League quote EVER
“Imagine a sheer cliff 200 meters metres high, and a mountain goat is sitting on it, and he’s eating some moss, some nutrients, but this mountain goat, he’s been there for 25 years,” Griffiths said in his post-match press conference.
“He knows the terrain. He knows every little step that he needs to take. He’s seen other mountain goats stepping in these places. Some are falling, some are still going, yeah?
“So this mountain goat loves being on this mountain. He loves the risk, he loves the decision making. He loves everything about it.
“Being on this mountain right now, I want you to forget about the mountain goat. Erase it from your memory. Erase it from your grey matter. Delete it. I am a lion.”
It was a moment with shades of Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Eric Cantona, with the Manchester United icon’s speech after picking up the UEFA President’s Award in 2019 still the stuff of legend.
Entertaining answers like these have become something expected from Griffiths, who has taken to life in the top job with ease since stepping in to replace David Zdrilic in interim capacity.
In past weeks, he has dropped some gold in press conferences.
Asked what his philosophy as a coach is and how he wants to be personified, Griffiths simply answered: “What do I want to be? A ledge (legend).”
After last week’s win over Macarthur, he delivered two crackers.
Asked again about whether he wanted the job full-time, he replied with one simple word: “Yes.”
He went on to speak about Glory defender Charbel Shamoon, who he has nicknamed ‘the barber’. After being prompted on where that nickname came from, he said: “I don’t know, he just looks like a barber.”
