Interview: Korea's 2002 Hero And New Busan Boss Hwang Sun-Hong

It had to happen sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before one of the 2002 World Cup heroes took the reins of a K-League team. It is perhaps fitting that the man who scored the first goal in South Korea’s unforgettable run to the semi-finals of the world’s biggest sporting event is the first one to try his luck in the domestic league.

Perhaps it is also fitting that the goal, which came against Poland in front of 55,000 delirious fans, was scored at Busan’s Asiad World Cup Stadium. For it is in that same cavernous arena where Hwang will start his coaching career with local team Busan I’Park. The 39 year-old has a tough challenge ahead.

Large attendances are a rarity at the stadium these days as the club has struggled in recent years. Four-time champions Busan may be but the latest came in 1997 and the top has been slipping increasingly out of sight. 2007 saw the south coast team finish next to bottom. It is a long way back to the summit but Hwang, who played over 100 international appearances in a career that spanned 14 years, was the top scorer in Japan’s league in 1999 and played 18 months under Guus Hiddink, has a background that at least provides a well-placed base camp.

On a snowy Seoul morning, I took the bullet train to the meet Hwang at Busan's clubouse in the north of the sprawling south coast city.

You had a successful time in Japan. What did you learn from the J-League?

Korean and Japan are rivals but their football styles have many differences. In the J-League, I remember feeling it was more technical and nice to watch.

It’s hard to say which is better. Technically, the K-League needs to improve. In the end, good football is winning football. J-League teams are more likely to give the fans the kind of football they want. Japanese players don’t waste energy and can attack quickly with fast passing. Korean players’ strong point is speed and aggression and if they can match these qualities with the J-Leagues strengths then Korean football will develop more.

How has the K-League changed since you retired?

When I played there was almost no team using four at the back. It was all man-to-man marking and very rough. Now players are trying to play more advanced and European-style football. There are many teams that use man-to-man and zonal. Also, the stadium facilities improved a lot after the Word Cup; It looks like we are moving towards more technically developed football.

Is it more difficult to score goals in Korea than Japan?

I think it’s more difficult. When I played in Japan, J-League teams used three and four at the back. Defenders were less active than Korea and used less man-to-man marking so for me, the J-league was easier than the K-League. I don’t mean that the standard was lower, it was just the perfect situation for me as a striker.

What was the biggest thing that Hiddink changed?

I think it was ball possession. In the past we wasted our energy with unnecessary passes and chasing around after defenders. Hiddink stressed that we should keep the ball safely and try to gain control of the game. Even after five years, I still am influenced by that.

Some people overseas say that Korea only reached the semi-finals with home advantage and favourable refereeing. What do you think about that?

Of course, playing at home is an advantage but I don’t think the referees were biased. We got results through trying our best and lots of effort. We trained hard and worked hard. Compared to before, there was much more competition for places. We grew more confident that we could win and did so fairly and squarely.

When the competition started did you really believe you could reach the semi-finals?

No. Our first target was to win our first World Cup game. Our second target was to reach the second round. When we did so, that was success for us. I didn’t expect to reach the semi-final.




How did you feel when you scored against Poland?
I can’t explain. It was a goal I had waited so long for. It was a goal that had deep meaning for Korea. I can’t express the feeling. I was so happy.

How did the 2002 World Cup change Korean football?

First, with Hiddink in charge, we could get many games against top class opposition like Czech Republic, England and France. Through these tests, we learned that if we play a little more coolly and ruthlessly against the big teams that we would be OK.. That was a big benefit.

What lessons do you feel Korean football has forgotten since then?

That of team balance. Through training, we learned how to save our energy and reduce unnecessary effort. We learned how to play much more efficiently and effectively and how to achieve more with less energy.

You scored goals everywhere you went. What was the secret to your success?

I had a goalscoring instinct but I also studied a lot. Training is very important but even when I was taking it easy, I was always thinking about how to score goals. When I, or somebody else, scored, I would often watch the video and think about what had happened and why it had happened. Thinking about the game is the way to be a success. These days, players sometimes lack that.

Can the goalscoring instinct be taught?

Strikers are born with the difficult art of scoring goals but by trying hard, it can be developed. Of course, constant effort is needed. With study, thinking and awareness, you can’t suddenly have an instinct for goal but you can reduce the failure rate. With thorough preparation, you can increase your goalscoring rate.

Why do Korean strikers struggle to score goals?

Of course, it is a striker’s job to score goals but it is also a problem for the whole team. It is not the problem of one player but means that there are many things that need to be changed. For example, if long passes or crosses don’t improve in quality then it will become increasingly difficult to score.

You spent a year in England recently –where?
Reading. English teams don’t open their training to the public. Reading then had Seol Ki-hyeon and were generous to Koreans. As you know, the Premier League is very energetic and has lots of appeal for fans.

Do Korean fans overrate the Premier League?

Perhaps that is true. Objectively, the Premier league is the leader of world football but it doesn’t match the Korean situation well. Our fans also need to lose their prejudice that English football is the best and Korean football is nothing.

What kind of coach will you be? Strict…?

I don’t want to be that kind of coach. I want to be a rational coach. A family atmosphere is very important. As the coach has no experience, I don’t know if my methods are correct. But I want to make a team with one mind and one voice. More than having a team that is a high-pressure team, I would like a spontaneous team.

If Busan players enjoyed late-night drinking sessions similar to some Korean players at the 2007 Asian Cup, how would you handle the situation?

To maintain team discipline, I would carefully judge the situation and impose a heavy punishment. Of course, there is time for all of us to have a drink. But timing is important –during the season or the day before a game, then that situation would be a big problem.

Did that happen during the 2002 World Cup?

No, never.

Why did you join Busan?

Busan was a great team but recently results have been good. There hasn’t been much talent and the situation was tough. However, the club is trying to try for a new start and there have been many changes. I also feel that that it is a worthy challenge.

What's the target for Busan in 2008?

Last season Busan was 13th and found it tough to score. First of all, we need to increase our scoring capability. I especially have in mind our home form. If we can move up to the middle-ranking K-League teams then that will be a success. However, I don’t want to make too many plans at the moment.

Is there money for new players?

The club handles that side of things so I don’t know. At the moment, the level of players is satisfactory so there is no problem.

How can you get more fans to come to the stadium?

The most important things is through our performances. We need to strengthen our weak points. The fans are far from the pitch so we have a plan to install some seating right next to the pitch so they will be able to enjoy the action much more. So now we are ready to make a favourable situation for the fans and know we have play better and attract the fans to the stadium.

Would you like to move? To Gudeok Stadium for example?

I really hope that we could have our own stadium. It is my fervent desire that Busan will be able to play games in front of more fans in the future. We will try little by little. First, we installed seats by the pitch so at the moment it’s unreasonable to move to Gudeok. Actually we looked into moving back to Gudeok but as it’s such a complicated problem, we decided to keep using Asiad Stadium.

What advice have you received from your fellow coaches?

They all advised me not too hurry. I am a new coach so there will be times when your plans and the reality is different, so don’t put pressure on yourself. When you are under pressure, many kinds of problems can occur and you need to think wisely. I heard that many times.

Is trading Ahn Yong-hak for Ahn Jung-hwan a fair one?

Ahn Yong-hak is a good player and I don’t need to tell you about Ahn Jung-hwan. Last season, Busan conceded 39 goals and scored just 20. So we have to increase our firepower. I am very positive about the transfer of Ahn Jung-hwan.

Can Ahn score goals here? He didn’t at Suwon.

Busan is much better for Ahn than Suwon. There is less mental pressure on Ahn at Busan. From now, the important thing is the players desire. I totally believe in the whole of the team, not only Ahn Jung-hwan. If he returns to peak condition then he can score more goals here than he did at Suwon.

As you are a former striker, can you help Ahn?

That’s right. But Busan is not just for Ahn Jung-hwan so it’s hard to focus on him but after training, I will help him if I can. As his senior, we can talk and I can advise him about technique. I have played with Ahn Jung-hwan and I know what his game lacks and his weak point.

There has been a lot of press attention focused on you and Ahn. Are you worried about that?

It has not been easy. If there are big expectations then isn’t there a big chance of disappointment? Excessive expectations can put pressure on me, Ahn and the other players. But we are professionals. It is not just about Ahn and me, the whole team team needs to know how to react positively to pressure and tension.

Copyright: John Duerden & Soccerphile


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Boycotts, Busan and Betrayal

It’s hard to get excited about any Olympic qualifier and a home game against Uzbekistan certainly wasn’t one to send pulses racing just south of the 38th Parallel. South Korea had already defeated the Central Asians in the second round of qualifying in March then went on to complete the double in Tashkent in April. If that wasn’t enough, the senior teams met in Seoul for a pre-Asian Cup friendly in July with another victory for the hosts.

At the end of a hard-fought game, Korea made it four wins out of four to get off to a winning start in the final round of qualifying and with the rest of Group B comprising of Bahrain and Syria, Beijing is becoming ever more visible just across the murky Yellow Sea.

The game was notable as it was Park Song-hwa’s first game as coach. Park has been involved with various national team set-ups over the years and after Andy Egli resigned as Busan I’Park boss at the beginning of July, Park moved into the hotseat on the south coast. It was a welcome move for the fans of the one-time giants of Korean and Asian football. Park has a decent reputation as a coach and those who know him speak of his open mind and a willingness to listen to others, not always abundant qualities among K-League coaches.

Fifteen days later he was gone, his smile beaming out of the front page of every sports daily in Seoul as he became the Olympic coach. Busan fans were less happy, speechless at the sight of the Korean FA poaching their coach of just one game.
Languishing near the bottom of the K-League, the departure was as one fan said "a kick in the teeth."

Despite a preference for baseball over football, there is still huge potential in the city of five million. The glory days are long gone however. It is ten years since Busan won the last of its four titles and the Asian championship came more than two decades ago in 1986.

The club provides its foreign coaches, Ian Porterfield a recent example, with great accommodation located in the swanky hills above Haeundae Beach on the eastern outskirts of the city. There were a couple of genuinely big European names interested in the job before Park was appointed though one of them has since found alternative employment in Europe. It is unlikely however that Busan has the money. The company behind the club, I-Park, pumps concrete on a daily basis as it constructs apartments up and down the peninsula but is less keen to pump money into the club’s coffers.

Good players have come but have often been allowed to leave. Ahn Jung-hwan, Song Chong-guk and Sasa Drakulic all sported the red and white and more recently Popo, one of the best foreigners in the K-League, was allowed to sign for nearby Gyeongnam. With the help of seven goals and nine assists from the Brazilian, Gyeongnam, who entered the league 23 years after Busan, are now nine places above I'Park.

Also higher are the attendances of almost every other club. The move to the 55,000 World Cup Stadium has not been blessed. The veruca-shaped bowl may look good but it lies far north of the city centre and is hard to fill. Worse, it is getting emptier by the year and these days crowd figures rarely cross the five-figure threshold.

Park may not have changed any of that but now we will never know. It has been left to assistant Kim Pan-gon to step forward as caretaker for the third time while Park made the journey north to the capital.

The Red Devils, the famed national team supporters group, called for a boycott of Park’s first game and made a number of demands. These included such requests as an official apology to Busan, the resignation of the KFA’s technical committee and a new plan for the future of the K-League. It remains to be seen how successful they are but the boycott wasn’t completely effective. Although the flags and drums were absent, there did seem to be a healthy number of red-shirted fans in the usual devils’ den and while it took a little longer than usual, the singing started early in the first half and didn’t stop.

A few Busan fans let their feelings known and unfurled a banner that read ‘Clueless KFA, deceitful Park Sung-hwa.’ As you can see in the link below, even though the game was about to finish, the authorities moved quickly to remove the offending article from the battle-hardened hooligans obviously intent on wreaking havoc.

De-bannering Busan fans

It is not a good time to be a Busan fan.

Copyright: John Duerden and Soccerphile



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K-League: Busan's Coach Andy Egli

“It is very strange to me.”

So says Busan I’Park’s Coach Andy Egli a number of times as he relaxes overlooking Haeundae Beach, one of South Korea’s most popular tourist spots.

The well-dressed Swiss boss has been on the south coast since July 2006 and while he has settled into life in Korea’s second city with the minimum of fuss, there are still a number of aspects that make him shake his head, laugh or both.

Being a football man, most of these things are regarding his life as one of three foreign coaches in the Land of the Morning Calm. Egli, a former defender who made 77 appearances for Switzerland’s national team, is an animated when sat on a plush sofa as he is standing on the sidelines during a Busan game.

That’s the way it should be at the start of a new season, especially at the start of a first full campaign in a foreign land. The second half of last year saw a respectable if unspectacular performance from the team and it also gave the 48 year-old time to get to know his players and vice-versa.

“The players know me better now,” he says. “They know my philosophy and they know how I expect them to play and what I expect them to do.” Not all of them though, as the trim European admits. “18 players left – too many, too many. 14 came in – this is Korean style.”

Busan is the second most successful club in Korean history and with four titles, is second to only Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma on the honors roll. However, this year marks the tenth year since the K-League trophy resided in this port city with a population of over four million.

Despite the size of the city, Busan is not one of the league’s big spenders and sits on the sidelines to watch the likes of Seongnam, Suwon and Ulsan splash the cash. Money was the main reason why star player of 2006 Popo left the club in the winter to join nearby Gyeongnam FC.

On mention of the Brazilians name and the fact that he scored for his new club earlier that day, Egli is immediately interested. “What kind of goal?” he asks quickly, “open play or free-kick? What was the score when he scored?”

Egli can be forgiven for his curiousity as Popo scored 13 goals last season, the second highest in the league, despite the fact that he is a midfielder but the goals came at a price.

“For Busan, Popo was an expensive player,” says the coach. “To extend his contract would have cost the club a lot of money. I knew the money that was needed to bring in the new Brazilian players and the money that was needed to keep Popo was, from my point of view, too much.

“Popo scored many goals but a lot of them were from free-kicks. Of course, that is a good quality, but he didn’t score many from open play.”

Players come and go in football and without the mercurial South American, Busan prepared for a new season and hopefully, a tilt at the title. The fixture list seemed kind. The first two games were at home and the visitors were the two teams that finished bottom of the 2006 standings.

It didn’t work out as expected. Jeju United won 1-0. That loss gave the visit of Gwangju Sangmu greater significance. Would the pressure be on with another home defeat?

“Definitely – yes, I can’t deny that. We do know at the moment what the result will be tomorrow but if we lose at home against a team that you should beat then of course there will be a certain pressure but that’s football and part of my job.”

As it turned out, Busan deservedly won 2-1 inside a cold stadium to move to the middle of the standings. From 2007, the teams that finish in the top six will qualify for the championship play-off series. Despite recent mediocrity, Busan have a chance of doing so. “We finished eighth last year,” recalls Egli, “and we have the ambition to be better so the sixth rank is not far.”

It will take hard work to get there, from the coach, the players and the coaching staff. Egli would like more discussions with his assistants but it is not easy.

“Korean coaches do not like to exchange their views, ideas or knowledge to develop the game. I ask them questions about analyzing games or why a certain coach did something but they will not say anything. It’s very interesting.”

Players can be uncomfortable too: “Sometimes after the game I gather the team to watch the video of the match. I tell them: ‘Now I am going to talk about football players, I am not going to talk about human beings. I am going to talk about number eight or number four and how we can make sure that we improve and don’t make the same mistakes.’ The players don’t like it and go like this,” Egli does a reasonable impression of Macauley Culkin’s famous Home Alone face.

“It seems not to be the Korean style and that is true with decision-making. This is the weakest point of Korean football.”

Despite a few failings, it is obvious that Egli is a natural optimist and he is positive about the long-term prospects for football in Korea.

“I think the future for Korean football is bright. These boys are strong, tall. They are quick and determined and they can play with both feet. They will continue to improve.

“The players in England now, they are changing as football players and personalities. When they come back to Korea with the national team, they bring those changes too. They are the future.”

Copyright: John Duerden & Soccerphile