Former K League head coach Kim Do-hoon was named the caretaker manager for the Korean men’s national football team Monday, with the country having failed to fill the coaching vacancy for over three months.
The Korea Football Association (KFA) said Kim will be the temporary bench boss for Korea’s upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifying matches next month — at Singapore on June 6 and against China at home on June 11.
The KFA has not yet found a full-time replacement for Jurgen Klinsmann, who was fired on Feb. 16 following Korea’s semifinal loss at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup.
Korea also played two World Cup qualifying matches in March under a caretaker boss, with Hwang Sun-hong, then head coach of the men’s under-23 national team, asked to pull double duty.
The KFA had hoped to name the new full-time coach by early May, after narrowing down the list of candidates from 11 to three, all of them foreign nationals, by late April.
However, Jesse Marsch, who was believed to have been the front-runner, took over the head coaching position of Canada last week instead. Over the 커뮤니티 weekend, Turkish media reported that Senol Gunes, former Turkey national team boss, had agreed to a three-year pact with Korea, but the KFA said such reports were incorrect.
And with the clock ticking down on the next set of World Cup qualifying matches, the KFA opted for the temporary solution once again.