By Kim Tong-hyung
You have to wonder when Choi Kang-hee will decide to stop disgracing himself. He has been so much better at that than coaching at the international level, so maybe not soon.
Despite being absolutely, positively the worst manager to helm Korea's senior national football team in the past 20 years, Choi somehow got the job done. His men looked so bad in the process that fans here still need to remind themselves there will be a Korean team in next year's World Cup finals.
The Koreans didn't win the spot in Brazil as much as they stumbled onto it. They clinched it by a margin of a single point in goal differential - the Uzbeks could only blame themselves for failing to defeat Qatar by five goals instead of four in their last qualifying match.
So in executing a coaching change just a year before the planet's biggest sporting event, the Korea Football Association (KFA) didn't need to offer much in answering why it will be Hong Myung-bo on the bench in Brazil instead of Choi.
Inheriting a squad that bottomed, cowered and caved under his predecessor, Hong certainly has his work cut out for him. It would help a little if Choi, whose face was the subject of a lost Edvard Munch painting called ''The Whine,'' could stop talking about the players he just departed from. Unfortunately, his mouth has been more open than a Seven Eleven.
Back as the coach of the Jeonbuk Motors in the K League Classic, Choi has been aggressively using the media to express his displeasure toward some Europe-based players he used on the national team, particularly Swansea City midfielder Ki Sung-yueng. He described these players as locker-room malcontents, criticized their work ethic, painting them as the main culprits for the brain-dead football Korea displayed in the past months.
The controversy created by Choi's comments exploded into a national scandal last week with the help of sports columnist Kim Hyun-hoe, who published leaked comments from a private Facebook account Ki shared only with close friends and family. Ki apparently wasn't a happy camper in Team Choi.
After Korea labored to a win against Kuwait in a qualifying match in February last year, Ki wrote, "I was shocked that I was left off for the first half, but I'm sure now everyone knows that the team needs players from overseas leagues … Choi shouldn't have touched us (Europe-based players). I hope he does not show his arrogance anymore. Otherwise, he might get hurt."
Kim's story sparked an Internet uproar and KFA felt obliged to do something about it. So in a stunning display of stupidity and ill-grace, the football governing body has decided to open a disciplinary committee to consider Ki's behavior and agree on a level of punishment.
It would be fair to say that Ki was unwise in believing that what he said on his personal Facebook account would always remain behind the closed walls of his social circle. It would be absurd to claim that he should be held responsible for private comments he had no intention of making public, which is exactly what the KFA is doing now.
Ki had never been previously accused for being a bad teammate. He was critical as a deep-lying playmaker for Korea's bronze-winning team at the London Olympics and played reasonably well for Choi's predecessor, Cho Kwang-rae, at the senior level. Sure, he didn't enjoy playing for Choi, but it's hard to imagine he was attempting a coach mutiny with secret Facebook jabs.
Ki's comments do suggest that the relationship between Choi and some of his key players was actually worse than feared.
Throughout much of the World Cup qualifying campaign, the players looked dejected and absent of ideas and confined to a style of play ill-suited for their skill sets which hindered their creativity. Perhaps, it was only a matter of time before players, overdosed with under-coaching, succumbed to their frustration and started tuning Choi out.
It's now up to Hong to clean up the mess, work with egos and ease the transition between the team's veterans and younger players like Ki and Budesliga hotshots Son Heung-min and Koo Ja-cheol, who had been marginalized by Choi's second-rate scheming.
If Choi had helped Hong in anyway, it's that he dragged the nation so deeply into a valley of lowered expectations that even mediocrity would be spelled as success for Hong going forward. Now, it's time for him to show some class and stay out of the way.
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| Choi Kang-hee |
Despite being absolutely, positively the worst manager to helm Korea's senior national football team in the past 20 years, Choi somehow got the job done. His men looked so bad in the process that fans here still need to remind themselves there will be a Korean team in next year's World Cup finals.
The Koreans didn't win the spot in Brazil as much as they stumbled onto it. They clinched it by a margin of a single point in goal differential - the Uzbeks could only blame themselves for failing to defeat Qatar by five goals instead of four in their last qualifying match.
So in executing a coaching change just a year before the planet's biggest sporting event, the Korea Football Association (KFA) didn't need to offer much in answering why it will be Hong Myung-bo on the bench in Brazil instead of Choi.
Inheriting a squad that bottomed, cowered and caved under his predecessor, Hong certainly has his work cut out for him. It would help a little if Choi, whose face was the subject of a lost Edvard Munch painting called ''The Whine,'' could stop talking about the players he just departed from. Unfortunately, his mouth has been more open than a Seven Eleven.
Back as the coach of the Jeonbuk Motors in the K League Classic, Choi has been aggressively using the media to express his displeasure toward some Europe-based players he used on the national team, particularly Swansea City midfielder Ki Sung-yueng. He described these players as locker-room malcontents, criticized their work ethic, painting them as the main culprits for the brain-dead football Korea displayed in the past months.
The controversy created by Choi's comments exploded into a national scandal last week with the help of sports columnist Kim Hyun-hoe, who published leaked comments from a private Facebook account Ki shared only with close friends and family. Ki apparently wasn't a happy camper in Team Choi.
After Korea labored to a win against Kuwait in a qualifying match in February last year, Ki wrote, "I was shocked that I was left off for the first half, but I'm sure now everyone knows that the team needs players from overseas leagues … Choi shouldn't have touched us (Europe-based players). I hope he does not show his arrogance anymore. Otherwise, he might get hurt."
Kim's story sparked an Internet uproar and KFA felt obliged to do something about it. So in a stunning display of stupidity and ill-grace, the football governing body has decided to open a disciplinary committee to consider Ki's behavior and agree on a level of punishment.
It would be fair to say that Ki was unwise in believing that what he said on his personal Facebook account would always remain behind the closed walls of his social circle. It would be absurd to claim that he should be held responsible for private comments he had no intention of making public, which is exactly what the KFA is doing now.
Ki had never been previously accused for being a bad teammate. He was critical as a deep-lying playmaker for Korea's bronze-winning team at the London Olympics and played reasonably well for Choi's predecessor, Cho Kwang-rae, at the senior level. Sure, he didn't enjoy playing for Choi, but it's hard to imagine he was attempting a coach mutiny with secret Facebook jabs.
Ki's comments do suggest that the relationship between Choi and some of his key players was actually worse than feared.
Throughout much of the World Cup qualifying campaign, the players looked dejected and absent of ideas and confined to a style of play ill-suited for their skill sets which hindered their creativity. Perhaps, it was only a matter of time before players, overdosed with under-coaching, succumbed to their frustration and started tuning Choi out.
It's now up to Hong to clean up the mess, work with egos and ease the transition between the team's veterans and younger players like Ki and Budesliga hotshots Son Heung-min and Koo Ja-cheol, who had been marginalized by Choi's second-rate scheming.
If Choi had helped Hong in anyway, it's that he dragged the nation so deeply into a valley of lowered expectations that even mediocrity would be spelled as success for Hong going forward. Now, it's time for him to show some class and stay out of the way.
