Coach Kim, who won the gold medal at the 2018 Palembang-Jakarta Asian Games, later took the helm of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic team, which was delayed for a year due to the Corona 19 incident. It was the normal procedure up to this point. At the time, he left a regret by being eliminated in the quarterfinals of the tournament, but former coach Kim was evaluated as one of the leading candidates to take the lead of the A national team after coach Paulo Bento.
The disappointment of the Olympics was filled with ‘learning’. Traveling around South America and Europe, he looked at the training methods and tactical trends of local clubs. He spent time upgrading his football knowledge while experiencing advanced football.
According to multiple officials familiar with the circumstances of the Korea Football Association, former manager Kim and senior officials also shared sympathy. Whether or not to extend the contract with coach Bento was a variable, but expectations were high in the expectation that it would be converted to a domestic coach as the issue of extension was already passed over due to disagreements over the contract period in September of last year.
However, when Chairman Lee Yong-soo resigned after the Qatar World Cup and no high-ranking official within the association appeared, the mood changed when Chung Mong-kyu, chairman of the association, appointed Michael Müller, chairman of the Technology Development Committee, as the chairman of the National Power Enhancement Committee in early January. Again, the atmosphere was to run the A national team with a foreign coach system. It is a message that former coach Kim, who was envisioning a coaching staff including a physical coach, had no choice but to fall into a ‘mental breakdown’.
In the meantime, the association has accumulated a justification for maintaining a foreign director. It is said that among the players who attended the banquet invited by the presidential office right after the Qatar World Cup, there was open talk of preferring a foreigner as the next coach. The players of the national team, who had become accustomed to the foreign manager system over the past four years and six months, refused to change.
Multiple officials criticized, “It is common sense that if the association decides on a coach, the players should follow that color. However, this time, the association has matched the coach with the voices of the players.”
The association is going backwards. The system is globalized, but administration is being conducted behind closed doors. Reporter Kim Jin-hoe manu35@sportschosun.com