With World Cup qualifying round done, Korea sets to resume men's nat'l football coaching search
With World Cup qualifying round done, Korea sets to resume men's nat'l football coaching search
Blog Article
With the second round of the World Cup qualification in the books, Korea will resume their search for the
new head coach for the men's national team.
Korea played their final four matches in the second round of the Asian qualification for the 2026 FIFA
World Cup under two different caretaker managers: Hwang Sun-hong for two contests in March and Kim
Do-hoon for two more this month. They had three wins and one draw in those four matches, capped by a
1-0 victory over China on Tuesday night in Seoul.
Korea qualified for the third round with ease, and the next phase kicks off in September. Over the next
couple of months, the Korea Football Association (KFA) will look to fill the coaching vacancy on the men's
squad, a task now long overdue.
The KFA sacked the previous head coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, on Feb. 16, in the aftermath of Korea's
semifinal loss at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup. With little time left before Korea's
next set of games — two World Cup qualifying matches against Thailand on March 21 and 26 — the KFA
settled on Hwang Sun-hong, then head coach of the men's under-23 national team, as the temporary
bench 안전 boss.
The KFA then began its coaching search in earnest in early April, announcing that it planned to interview
11 candidates. Chung Hae-sung, the top KFA official in the searching process as head of the National
Teams Committee, said the goal was to name the new head coach by early May or the middle of May at the
latest.
And by the end of April, the KFA had narrowed down the list of candidates to three — all of them foreign
nationals. Though the KFA didn't publicly disclose those names, it was a poorly-kept secret that Jesse
Marsch, former Leeds United head coach, was in the running.
However, Marsch ended up taking the Canadian men's job on May 13, after his talks with the KFA fell
through, apparently over his salary demand.
Senol Gunes, former Turkey national team head coach who has worked in the Korean league, was also
reportedly considered, but Turkish media reports claiming Gunes had accepted a three-year offer from the
KFA turned out to be false.
At the end of May, Spanish media reported that former FC Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez had
spurned an offer from Korea.
With one name after another coming off the list and none entering the rumor mill, the KFA was forced to
go with another temporary head coach for the two June matches. Following Tuesday's win, Kim said he
hoped he would be the last caretaker manager for Korea.
"I hope we will have a new head coach who can guide Korean football in the right direction," Kim said. "I
think we are capable of winning the possession battles and controlling matches. With the players that are
available, I think we have to play a proactive brand of football."
Now, it is up to the KFA to find a tactician who can make that happen.
The draw for the third round in the World Cup qualification is June 27. The third round will kick off Sept.
5 and conclude on June 10, 2025.
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