South Korea on Monday chose Dutchman Pim Verbeek as its new national football team coach two days after the team's first-round exit at the World Cup finals in Germany, the Korea Football Association (KFA) said.
"We appointed Verbeek, senior assistant coach of the Korean national football team, as successor to Dick Advocaat," Lee Young-moo, chairman of the technical committee of the KFA, said in a press conference.
"Verbeek is known for his great enthusiasm and affection for South Korea, as well as his deep knowledge of the Korean football and its players. He is also widely trusted by the Korean players," said Lee.
The 50-year-old Verbeek, who served as an assistant to outgoing Dutchman Advocaat from last September, will be in charge of preparing the team for preliminaries in September for the Asian Cup finals, according to KFA officials. He is the seventh foreign coach to oversee South Korea's national team.
Verbeek also served as assistant coach to former South Korean manager Guus Hiddink, another Dutchman, during the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan. He then coached the Netherlands Antilles squad for half a year from December 2003.
The KFA said the contract with Verbeek will last two years until late August 2008, but did not disclose his salary.
He declined Advocaat's offer to work together with Russian football club Zenit St Petersburg. Advocaat recently signed with the Russian club.
In 2002, South Korea stunned the world by advancing to the semifinals of the World Cup.
Last Saturday, however, they failed to quell criticism that their stellar achievement in 2002 was only possible because they played at home, as they exited the World Cup finals after a 2-0 loss to Switzerland.
To live up to high public expectations, the new coach is expected to attempt a sweeping change of the team.
In an interview after South Korea's failure to advance to the World Cup knockout stage, Verbeek said, "We have to change a lot of things if we ever want to come back to what we did four years ago."
Seoul, June 26 (Yonhap News)
Dutchman Pim Verbeek named as S. Korea's new football coach |
