Harry Kewell's move into management with English League Two strugglers Crawley Town means that, not for the first time, he is a groundbreaker among his peers.

While many of his age cohort and Socceroo teammates – notably Tony Popovic, Kevin Muscat, Paul Okon and John Aloisi – have established themselves in managerial positions in the A-League, Kewell might be considered  the first of the so-called "Golden Generation" to get a head coaching  job in a major European footballing nation. 

Some will quibble with that definition as it depends, of course, on how you might view Greece as a major footballing nation, because current Socceroo boss Ange Postecoglou had a brief spell managing Panachaiki in 2008. And championship-winning Sydney boss Graham Arnold also had an even shorter time in Japan, with Vegalta Sendai.

But Postecoglou, now in his 50s, is definitely not a playing peer of Kewell nor a member of the "Golden Generation" and while Arnold was around when many of that generation were just breaking through, his best playing days were behind him as the likes of Kewell, Mark Viduka, Okon and Aloisi were getting going.

Suffice to say that Kewell is leading the way among his contemporaries in getting the head coaching job in England, which, despite the national team's lack of success in World Cups and major tournaments, most definitely is a major football nation. Popovic did have a year as first-team coach at Crystal Palace, but was never the man in overall charge during his spell on the coaching bench at Selhurst.

Admittedly, Kewell is well down the food chain and Crawley Town is hardly the most glamorous of locations.

But a coach, even if he is arguably the best player this country has ever produced, has to start somewhere.

In Kewell's favour is the fact that for Crawley, barring an absolute disaster, the only way is up.

The club finished 19th in League Two in the season just finished, just three places above the relegation trapdoor which would have seen them drop out of the Football League and into the National League.

Crawley have been a symbol of the change at the lower levels of English football in the past 20 years.

They only won promotion to the football league at the start of the 2011-12 season and immediately enjoyed success, going up to League One in their first season. They stayed there for three seasons before being relegated at the end of the 2014-15 season.

They are one of a number of clubs – Burton Albion, Stevanage, Fleetwood, Morecambe, Cheltenham, among others – to have come into the main competition in recent decades as the demographics of the English game change at lower levels with new investment in ambitious lower-league clubs.

Kewell has always been ambitious, having told journalists at a PFA press conference in Melbourne late last year that long term he would love to manage Liverpool, the biggest club for whom he played and with whom he won a Champions League and FA Cup winners medal.

At the time most who read the story would have laughed and said such a statement was merely a pipe dream, especially as he was then involved coaching a Watford under-23 team that was, not to put too fine a point on it, enjoying little success.

Kewell was at pains to point out then that results were not necessarily the key performance indicator for that position, he would be judged on whether he produced sufficient young players who eventually graduated to the first team.

He ended up parting company with Watford before the season ended, but now, in the hot seat at the club from the West Sussex commuter town, Kewell will find that results are very much what he will be judged on when he takes charge against the likes of Carlisle United, Lincoln City, Luton Town and Cambridge United next season.