Reporter Ahn Gyeong-nam = While the first meeting was held to find a successor to former Korean national football team coach Paulo Bento, candidates for the new command tower are rising and falling in Hama Pyeong through various channels.
A committee centered on Michael Müller (Germany), head of the National Team Strengthening Committee, held its first online video meeting on the 25th and started the procedure to select the next soccer team coach.
The meeting will be held privately until the appointment of the manager, and it is expected that he will be appointed before the A-match scheduled for March 20-28.
The Korean national soccer team is looking for a new coach as coach Bento, who led the 2022 Qatar World Cup round of 16, left.
There was once a report that a domestic coach would come as his successor, but it is highly likely that a foreign coach will take the helm once again to meet the heights of fans raised by Bento’s success.
Candidates for Korean directors, which had been hidden in a veil, began to be revealed one after another through foreign media.
First of all, local media reported that Jose Bordalas (Spain) and former Getafe (Spain) coach had contacted the Korea Football Association.
Bordalas, who started his leadership career in 1993, mainly took charge of Spanish clubs such as Deportivo Alaves, Getafe and Valencia. In 2021, his leadership was recognized, such as taking the baton of Valencia, where Lee Kang-in worked, and leading it to the final of the Spanish King’s Cup (Copa del Rey).
However, he has never led the national team, and he has not been in charge of an overseas club, so it is questionable whether it is possible to ‘live in Korea’.
The famous Brazilian coach, Coach Chi Chi, was also rated as one of the top performers. Coach Chichi, who has coached the Brazilian national team since 2016, led the team to win the 2019 South American Football Championship (Copa America). However, at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, he was hardened without being able to cross the wall of the quarterfinals.
Coach Chichi boasts a career comparable to that of Guus Hiddink in terms of reputation and skill. However, in Brazil, coach Chi Chi denied going to Korea, saying he had refused the position of coach of the Korean national team.
However, if the Korea Football Association decides that coach Chichi is the right person and actively persuades him, a reversal may occur.
The former coach of Thorsten Fink (Germany), who was the mentor of Son Heung-min during his time in Hamburg in the German Bundesliga, was also mentioned as the next coach for the Korean national team.
Coach Pink has a high understanding of Asian football, such as leading the Japanese J-League Vissel Kobe to win the Emperor’s Cup in the 2019 season. He also has a deep relationship with Korean players such as Son Heung-min, Park Joo-ho (Suwon FC), and Lee Jin-hyun (Daejeon). He even coached goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu (Al Shabab) in Kobe.
In addition, it is also positive that coach Pink showed interest in the Korean national team command tower through an agent. If Müller, who is from Germany, steps forward, director Fink’s trip to Korea could speed up. 안전놀이터
Former Leeds United coach Marcelo Bielsa (Argentina) and former German national team coach Jürgen Klinsmann are also mentioned as candidates for the next coaching tower.
However, the key is whether the association can afford their ransom. Bento’s former coach’s annual salary was around 1.35 million dollars (about 1.6 billion won), but they ranged from as little as 4 billion won to as much as 12 billion won.
Here, if the new coach brings his own coaching staff and builds a ‘division’ like Bento, his annual salary will increase.
It is good to bring in a world-famous ‘big name’ leader, but some point out that it is better to exclude from the candidate group early on a level that they cannot afford unless they lower their ransom themselves.
