South Korea’s footballers want to finally win the Asian Championship title for the first time since 1960 and become number one on the continent again. But recently disillusionment has spread.
Jürgen Klinsmann’s escapades as a coach are not just now noticed in South Korea.
Kim Soo-Hyeon / Reuters
Anyone who heard Jürgen Klinsmann speak recently would have thought that the coach of the South Korean national football team was currently on a roll. As he looked at the upcoming Asian Championships in the capital Seoul with a beaming face, he gushed: “We are ready for the trip to Qatar. We are full of energy. We have a lot of faith. We hope we can make you all very, very happy.”
Meanwhile, the continental tournament in Qatar began last Friday. And Klinsmann, who won the World Cup with Germany in 1990 as a player and came third in the World Cup in 2006 as a team manager, has set a proud goal for this final round: winning the tournament. “We work for this every day.”
Klinsmann is certainly correct in assuming that he would bring relief to the East Asian country with its 52 million inhabitants by winning the title. When it comes to football, the nation is one of the major powers on its continent. But she last won the Asian Championship in 1960.
So it is a triumph that only senior citizens in the country can remember. Younger people experienced the 2015 final defeat to Australia. Or the respective failures in the semi-finals of 2007 and 2011. This after South Korea surprisingly reached fourth place at the home World Cup in 2002. For years, people in the country have agreed that it is time to finally become Asia’s number one in football again.
Jürgen Klinsmann, who is currently manager of the South Korea national football team, speaks to Gulf Times about the Asian level of football and where it’s heading to.
Klinsmann played for several prominent clubs in Europe including VfB Stuttgart, Inter Milan, Monaco, Tottenham… pic.twitter.com/X3rd0D7C4x
— Gulf Times (@GulfTimes_QATAR) January 14, 2024
Speeches by coach Jürgen Klinsmann.
Youtube
Kim Min-jae defends for Bayern Munich, Son Heung-min leads Tottenham Hotspur
Just to make this happen, the Korean Football Association hired Klinsmann almost a year ago. At first the signing was considered a sensation, with newspapers raving about the “German icon”. But disillusionment has set in. The team was unable to win any of the first five games with Klinsmann, not even El Salvador was defeated and there was a defeat against Peru. South Korea won all of the last six games, but against nominally inferior teams such as Vietnam, Singapore, China and Iraq.
And so Klinsmann is counted. Media has targeted him and criticized the uninspired performances of his selection. Klinsmann sometimes reacted emotionally to this, which was to be expected when you think about his career. He said: “You can win all four games at the beginning and there will still be criticism; in the way of playing, in the way of changing.” It didn’t bother him, he assured in September, when there was already speculation about his dismissal.
The national team’s slump was all the more surprising because the prospects for South Korean football didn’t seem so bad after all. Legionnaires from this country are team pillars in several top European leagues: In the Bundesliga there is Kim Min-jae, defender at Bayern Munich. In the Premier League, striker Son Heung-min leads Tottenham Hotspur. And Lee Kang-in is considered a diamond in the rough in midfield at Paris Saint-Germain. The squad is filled with regular players from European first division teams and top performers from South Korean clubs.
Klinsmann’s national player Kim Min-jae has made it to FC Bayern Munich.
Imago / Oryk Haist / www.imago-images.de
South Korea also won gold in football last summer at the Asian Games, a kind of Olympic Games for Asia. There it was the U-23 team that competed, led by Jeong Woo-yeong, who moved from SC Freiburg to VfB Stuttgart this season. The triumph at the Asian Games – in the final they beat their arch-rivals Japan – appeased the people in South Korea. But Jürgen Klinsmann didn’t achieve this success. The U23 was coached by former national player Hwang Sun-hong.
For Klinsmann, the height of the fall has become even lower. Because everyone knows: the current generation of South Korean footballers is one of the best that Asia has to offer. And Klinsmann also provoked criticism far away from the lawn.
The Korean Football Association wants its national coaches to live in the country, but Klinsmann often stayed abroad during the first few months of his job – a pattern that he also noticed during his time as German team boss from 2004 to 2006. when he preferably lived in California. When asked about this in South Korea, Klinsmann responded snidely at a press conference: Then he wouldn’t look at the players who played in Europe.
Assessment of the player Jürgen Klinsmann.
Youtube
He learned: Klinsmann did not allow criticism of himself to escalate
Klinsmann (often called “Sunny Boy” as a player) didn’t just get noticed in South Korea with his escapades as a coach. In his previous job, at Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga, Klinsmann publicly attacked the club’s management after a few months, which ended the collaboration. In South Korea, where values such as loyalty and gratitude are considered particularly important, such behavior would not only lead to the immediate termination of the contract, but also to extremely serious damage to the company’s image.
But Klinsmann, who scored a dream goal against South Korea at the 1994 World Cup that is still remembered in this country today, seems to have learned. Before the Asian Championships, he did not allow criticism of himself to escalate. Instead, he made a patriotic appeal: everyone in the country should please pull together, asked the coach, who has a reputation as a successful whip. «It is important that everyone creates a positive mood. The fans, the media and of course the team.”
And if you don’t win the tournament? “Then there is enough time to criticize the coach or fire him or whatever you want,” said Klinsmann. The announcement seems to have paid off. Since then, media criticism of Klinsmann and his team has decreased and victories have followed.
How good the South Korean selection really is will be shown for the first time at the Asian Championship this Monday when the team meets Bahrain. The other group opponents are Jordan and Malaysia. And how happy Klinsmann actually makes South Korea will be decided by February 10th at the latest: the final of the Asian Championships is scheduled for that day in Lusail.