[스포츠한국 김성수 기자] With coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s (58) debut as the head coach of the Korean national football team imminent, we looked at records related to the debuts of previous national team coaches.
The football team led by coach Klinsman will play an evaluation match against Colombia at the Ulsan Munsu Football Stadium at 8:00pm on the 24th. This is Klinsmann’s first game as coach of the Korean national team.
On the afternoon of the 20th, Klinsmann was officially summoned to the NFC in Paju, Gyeonggi-do, and after training until the 22nd, he moved to Ulsan to prepare for the evaluation match against Colombia on the 24th. Coach Klinsmann, the German football legend, was appointed as the coach of the Korean national football team in February and started his first job with this convocation.
Director Klinsman faces his critical debut. If so, what was the first game before the national team coaches?
The first full-time coach of the national football team was coach Kim Ho, who was appointed before the 1994 World Cup in the United States. However, after coach Kim Ho, coaches Anatoly Byshovets and Park Jong-hwan simultaneously served as Olympic team coaches and Seongnam Ilhwa coaches, respectively, while the rest were interim coaches. It was not until 1997, after coach Cha Bum-keun, that the full-time manager system was fully established. In this regard, we looked at the first games of 14 former national team coaches, excluding coach Cha Bum-geun and interim coach.
Fourteen coaches, from Cha Bum-kun to Klinsman, took over as the head coach of the Korean national soccer team. There are 6 domestic directors and 8 foreign directors. As for foreigners, starting with Guus Hiddink (Netherlands) in 2002, Umberto Coelho (Portugal), Joe Bonfrere (Netherlands), Dick Advocaat (Netherlands), Pim Verbeek (Netherlands), Uli Stielike (Germany), Paulo Bento (Portugal) , and Jurgen Klinsmann (Germany) rose to the command tower. The domestic directors were Cha Beom-geun, Heo Jeong-moo (2nd episode), Cho Kwang-rae, Choi Kang-hee, Hong Myung-bo, and Shin Tae-yong.
The previous coaches first match result is 8 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses, with a win rate of 57%. When comparing the first matches between foreign and domestic coaches, the foreign coach’s first match recorded 5 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, which is better than the domestic manager’s first match (3 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss). The protagonists of the only loss in their first game were coach Hiddink, who lost 2-3 to Norway in the Carlsberg Cup in Hong Kong in 2001, and coach Huh Jeong-moo, who lost 0-1 to Chile in a friendly in 2008. Both coaches lost in their first game, but it was a turn for them to progress to the semi-finals of the World Cup and the first round of 16 away from home.
Coach Choi Kang-hee is the protagonist of the game with the most points scored before his first game. On February 25, 2012, in their first match against Uzbekistan in a friendly match held in Jeonju, they won 4-2 with several goals from Lee Dong-guk and Kim Chi-woo. The protagonist of the first game, which won the biggest score difference, is Pim Verbeek. On August 16, 2006, in an away match against Chinese Taipei in the Asian Cup qualifiers, Ahn Jung-hwan, Jeong Jo-guk and Kim Doo-hyun scored a goal to win by 3 goals. In terms of conceding records, it is worth noting that there were as many as 9 scoreless games in the first 13 games of management.
Central and South America have met 4 times in their first training match, with 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. Colombia is the only team in Central and South America that the coach of the Korean national football team will face for the second time against his debut. On 29 March 2003, coach Humberto Coelho made his debut in a friendly against Colombia in Busan, where he won 0–0.
▶ Previous results of the Korean national football team training match
Cha Bum-kun 1997.01.18 Australia 4 Nations Friendly vs Norway 1-0
Huh Jung-moo 1998.11.22 Korea-China regular match against China 0-0
Guus Hiddink 2001.01.24 Carlsberg Cup against Norway by 2-3
Umberto Coelho 2003.03.29 Friendly draw against Colombia 0-0
Joe Bonfrere 2004.07.10 Friendly vs Bahrain 2-0
Dick Advocaat 2005.10.12 Friendly against Iran 2-0 win
Pim Verbeck 2006.08.16 AFC Asian Cup Qualifier vs Chinese Taipei 3-0
Huh Jeong-moo 2008.01.30 Friendly 0-1 loss against Chile
Cho Kwang-rae 2010.08.11 Friendly match against Nigeria won 2-1
Choi Kang-hee 2012.02.25 Friendly match against Uzbekistan 4-2
Hong Myeong-bo 2013.07.20 EAFF East Asia Cup draw vs Australia 0-0
Uli Stielike 2014.10.10 Friendly against Paraguay 2-0 win
Taeyong Shin 2017.08.31 World Cup Final vs Iran 0-0
Paulo Bento 2018.09.07 Friendly win against Costa Rica 2-0
Jurgen Klinsmann 2023.03.24. Friendly against Colombia
