Not just for this tournament, but for the long term, Jürgen Klinsmann is a risky bet.
Klinsmann lasted about a year before the 2023 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup in Qatar. The results were not good and he was heavily criticized. In my last two articles (Why Klinsmann deserves criticism: 1) The tactics are there, but there is no progress and (2) ‘Are you laughing?’ 온라인카지노 You’re always the only one having fun), I explained why.
The Korean Football Association has been in a state of limbo regarding Klinsmann’s departure. Most observers believe that he will not be sacked or resign. If Klinsmann were to stay on, it would lead to one serious problem after another. The problems we”ve described will be repeated and fans will have the unpleasant experience of watching the same scenes over and over again.
The biggest problem is the stagnation of the national team. Fewer people would be opposed to a Klinsmann regime if it showed promise of improvement despite poor previous results. If you make a mistake in your notes and don’t get that part wrong in the next test, but improve in other areas, your immediate failure is the foundation for future success. The public will be supportive.
That’s not what Klinsmann has shown at all. It’s not just his tactics or demeanor, it’s the way he operates. Klinsmann has barely been in the country for the past year. He traveled to the United States and Europe, emphasizing an international perspective. He traveled to England and Germany, where Son Heung-min and Kim Min-jae play, and to AS Monaco, where he played. Klinsmann’s coaches are also based in Europe.
The players who have already been to Europe are already stars. To find new faces, we need to look at Europe, but the first place to start is the K League. The K League is the birthplace of Korean soccer, and many legends and players who have graced the European stage have come from the K League. Almost all of the national team players are from the K League, and many younger players play in the K League under a localized rule called the U-22 rule.
Klinsmann doesn’t seem to have much interest in the K League. “I don’t know how many K League games and players I watch,” he says every time, but it doesn’t show. Even when he visits a K League match in person, he doesn’t watch the entire game. In fact, they probably get more information from videos or coaches’ dispatches than they do from the stands.
If you look at the K League players on the national team, you”ll see that they”re dressed in clothes that don”t match what they play. Ahn Hyun-beom, who played like a three-back stopper, and Lee Sun-min, who played almost like a striker. In the Asian Cup, we had players like Moon Sun-min and Kim Joo-sung, but we didn’t even utilize them properly. It’s very concentrated in a few clubs, and players from other teams, even if they get picked, end up playing somewhere that doesn’t utilize their abilities, or they don’t play at all. Many managers around the world emphasize the development of their national teams, but Klinsmann is doing exactly the opposite.
Does he select players with an eye on the future? Not really. Very few of the young players he has experimented with during his tenure have even made the bench, let alone the starting lineup. Even at the Asian Cup, when the roster was expanded to 26 players, he picked youngsters like Yang Hyun-joon and Kim Ji-soo, but stuck with the main squad even in games like the one against Malaysia where he could have utilized them. There were many opportunities to experiment and give young players a chance before the Asian Cup, but he stuck with the first team every time.
Since Klinsmann’s arrival, Lee Kang-in is the only young player who has really established himself in the national team. I’m not just talking about the starters, but players who have gained experience and established themselves in the national team. To be honest, the youngsters who have been called up don’t really matter if they are selected or not. If anything, there are more older players. Klinsmann’s words, “We have to think about the future of Korean soccer. We can’t just look at the present.” This is at odds with what Klinsmann has always said.
The team is not laying any foundations for the future, let alone the present. In the long term, not just the short term, Klinsmann is not the right man for the job. Furthermore, the lack of an internal body or position within the Korean Football Association to check and monitor Klinsmann makes it difficult to know how to prepare and what is wrong. The risk of regression is very high. That’s why I hope the KFA will think more carefully about Klinsmann’s departure.