Dick Advocaat Is Appointed South Korea's Coach

John Duerden reports

Dick Advocaat came up along the inside to land the job of the new coach of the South Korean national team, beating a field of six other managers who also hailed from outside the Land of the Morning Calm.

We may never know who else was on the Korean Football Association's seven-strong shortlist but according to the organization, people who may, or may not have been, Bobby Robson, Berti Vogts, Rudi Voeller, Ian Porterfield, Phillipe Troussier and Mick McCarthy, were not even contacted as Advocaat was the first choice.

A big bonus for the KFA as its representative travelled to the United Arab Emirates to persuade the Dutchman, Korea's third coach from the Netherlands in less than five years, was the presence of Pim Verbeek as his assistant in the Gulf State.

Verbeek knows more than most about South Korea as he spent over 18 months as Guus Hiddink's assistant from December 2000 to June 2002 and was interested himself in the job that was vacated by Jo Bonfrere on August 23.

The mild-mannered 48-year-old will prove to be a valuable help to the third coach to take the helm of the 2002 World Cup semi-finalists in the past two and a half years.

Advocaat arrives in East Asia on September 29 along with a reputation that isn't quite what it was a few years ago after he led the Netherlands to the World Cup quarter-finals in 1994, PSV Eindhoven to the Dutch Cup and League in 1996 and 1997 respectively and took Glasgow Rangers to the title in 1999 and 2000. Around that time the 57-year-old could probably have taken his pick from almost any job in the world.

Matters took a turn for the worse after the second of those two titles as Martin O'Neill started to weave his magic on the east side of the Scottish city.

Spending around $20 million on Tore Andre Flo was a prime example of a number of dubious transfer dealings which totaled a huge amount of $140 million over four years, and ultimately proved futile in helping the 51-time Scottish Champions to achieve the European success that the fans and the board craved.

Returning to the Netherlands and the national side, the "Little General" took the team to the European Championships via the Play-offs, despite a scare back in Glasgow after the talented Dutch lost the first leg. A 6-0 victory in Amsterdam clinched a place in Portugal in the summer of 2004.

On the face of it, a semi-final elimination at the hands of the hosts is not a disgrace but the record of the 1988 holders on the Iberian Peninsula was poor. Out of the five games played, only one was won and that was against the tournament's weakest team, Latvia.

As the ‘Oranje' threw away a 2-0 lead against the Czech Republic to lose 3-2, Advocaat was on the receiving end of a fierce media onslaught after bringing on defensive midfielder Paul Bosveldt for Chelsea's flying winger Arjen Robben, a move that handed the initiative to the talented East Europeans.

Such criticism led to the coach resigning after the end of the competition. He was only out of the game for a short time, and despite his application for the Blackburn Rovers job being rejected, he was back in club management with Borussia Monchengladbach by November.

The once proud German club had fallen on leaner times and their new manager was busy in the transfer market and brought in a number of new faces but they couldn't prevent the 1977 European Cup finalists from becoming embroiled in a relegation battle.

With the team lying one point above the relegation zone in April 2005, Advocaat handed in his resignation and took up a position as the coach of the United Arab Emirates in July.

The rest, as they say, is history. Three weeks after Jo Bonfrere resigned from the post, the KFA announced that Dick Advocaat and his assistant Pim Verbeek are the men to lead the nation to a seventh World Cup.

With the return of Hiddink's former assistant, a number of players who featured in 2002 but were not part of Bonfrere's plans such as Lee Eul-yong, Choi Tae-wook and Song Chong-guk, could find themselves invited back to the national team set-up.

The long-term absentees may find that things have changed since the heady days of 2002. There will be much to do for the Dutchman, his coaching staff and players over the next few months. He will find that while expectations in South Korea are nothing compared to his native Netherlands, a place in the second round of the World Cup next year is what most people demand.

John Duerden

Related Links

World Cup 2002 Korea - Jan Roelfs Interview
Dick Advocaat Interview
Dick Advocaat Interview 2
Park Ji Sung & Park Chu Young
Jo Bonfrere

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