The competition for the group stage of this year's World Preliminary Championships is particularly fierce, and many teams have changed their coaches because of the results problem. Especially in Group C, where the Chinese team is located, all 4 teams have recently changed coaches.
The South Korean team, which is currently ranked first in the group, has just fired German coach Jurgen Klinsmann's squid and appointed Hwang Sun-hong as the interim coach of the national team. After Hwang Sun-hong took over, South Korea's performance was still not satisfactory to the fans, and they were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Thailand in the third round of the group stage.
Fortunately, in the fourth round of the group stage, South Korea defeated Thailand 3-0 away and continued to lead Group C. At present, the group stage of the second stage of the World Preliminary Championship has come to an end, and the Korean Football Association will use the next two months of off-season to find an official coach for the national team.
As a first-class team in Asia, in recent years, the goal of the South Korean team is not only to enter the World Cup, but also to achieve good results in the World Cup and even impact the championship is their ultimate goal. Therefore, today's South Korean team is not a world-famous coach, and a coach of Klinsmann's level can only be reluctantly accepted by Korean fans.
Recently, according to some domestic sports media reports, the South Korean Football Association is currently communicating with Mourinho, known as the "madman", hoping to hire the Portuguese coach as the coach of the national team. Jose Mourinho is definitely a world-class manager, but his coaching performance has begun to decline significantly in recent years, and he can only coach a quasi-first-class team in Serie A like Roma.
Mourinho has not found a new job since leaving Roma, and it looks like he has gradually moved away from Europe's mainstream leagues. In such a situation, Mourinho also had to start thinking about Asian coaching. The Korean Football Association also took this opportunity to throw an olive branch to Mu Shuai.
Although Mourinho has never coached any Asian team before, he is not too new to the South Korean team, because the top scorer of the South Korean team, Son Heung-min, has worked with Mourinho for 2 seasons at Tottenham Hotspur, Mourinho knows Son Heung-min's abilities and characteristics very well, and the relationship between the two is also very harmonious.
Although the Korean Football Association has shown enough sincerity to Mourinho, the biggest difficulty facing them at the moment is the issue of Mourinho's annual salary. As the top coach in Europe in the past, Mourinho's annual salary is very high, never less than 10 million euros, and for the Korean Football Association, such a fee is obviously unaffordable for them.
It is reported that the maximum annual salary that the Korean Football Association can offer to Mourinho will not exceed 8 million euros, which is obviously not far from Mourinho's requirements. However, Mourinho urgently needs to take over a team that is strong enough and prove himself again with excellent results. With that in mind, perhaps Mourinho will be able to accept the conditions offered by the Korean Football Association.
Once Mourinho joins, then the overall level of the South Korean team can rise to a new level. This is not good news for the national football team, in the final round of the group stage of the World Preliminary Championships, they will challenge the South Korean team away from home, and the national football team should have given up this game in advance. Therefore, the home match against Thailand in June will be very crucial, and only by defeating the opponent can the national football team secure the right to qualify from the group.