A South Korean Coach for a South Korean Team

South Korea have bucked the trend in international football by hiring… a South Korean. Huh Jung-Moo has already done the job once, from 1998 to 2000, but was appointed after the South Korean FA got a “non, merci” and a “thanks but no thanks” from Frenchman Gerard Houllier and Irishman/Yorkshireman Mick McCarthy respectively. So the local candidate was very much third prize. Seems that nationality is no longer a high priority for most FAs when appointing a manager.

Just this week, Australia appointed a Dutchman (former South Korea coach Pim Verbeek) after being screwed over by another Dutchman, Serbia fired a Spaniard and England have been nervously glancing in Jose Mourinho’s direction. So is the time of national team managers having the same passport as his players coming to an end?

Clearly it is, but only among the smaller teams. It makes sense that nations without a long football history will not necessarily have the best coaches available to them. So to produce the best possible results from the players available it makes perfect sense to hire the best possible coach. And for nations like South Korea or Australia that means going outside the country.

It’s a strategy that has produced results. International man of strategy Guus Hiddink took South Korea to the World Cup semi-final in 2002. You can’t argue with that. He did a similarly good job with Australia and has now taken Russia to Euro 2008.

But the very best nations stick to their own, not just out of pride, but because they have a pool of managerial talent available to them. Italy, France, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain. These nations have never appointed a foreign manager, because they’ve never needed to.

I’d even argue that you can judge a nation’s standing by whether they need to hire a foreign coach or not. Because though most nations are doing just that, they’re doing it out of the necessity to get results. I’m sure they’d tell you that in an ideal situation they’d want the same results but with a domestic coach.

This is, of course, bad news for England but possibly a timely reality check. England consider themselves among the elite footballing nations, but when you look around at potential English managers, it’s difficult to support that argument. Steve McClaren is Exhibit A. Even those who weren’t happy with his appointment in 2006 conceded that he was the best qualified English coach. The next coach will almost certainly be foreign, and that means England may have to admit that they’ve descended from the top tier.