S. Korea set to resume search for national team head coach
With the second round of the World Cup qualification in the books, South Korea will resume its search for a new head coach for the men’s national team.
South Korea played its 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. The team had three wins and one draw in those four matches, capped by a 1-0 victory over China on Tuesday night in Seoul.
South 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 will look to fill the coaching vacancy on the men’s squad, a task now long overdue.
The KFA sacked the previous head coach, Juergen Klinsmann, on Feb. 16, in the aftermath of South Korea’s semifinal loss at the Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup. With little time left before South Korea’s next set of games — two World Cup qualifying matches against Thailand on March 21 and 26 — the KFA settled on Hwang Sunhong, then head coach of the men’s under-23 national team, as the temporary bench 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 search 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.
By the end of April, the KFA had narrowed down the list of candidates to three — all of them foreign nationals. Though the KFA did not 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, the former Turkey national team head coach who has worked in the South 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 South 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 South Korea. (Yonhap)