South Korean football keeps raising expectations without getting any better
South Korea lost 1–0 to Mexico in a Group Stage match at the 2026 World Cup in North America on June 19, 2026.
Despite the public’s support and high hopes, the players looked listless throughout the match and were thoroughly outplayed. Even as the second half drew to a close, South Korea had yet to register a single shot on target.
To be honest, I have not expected much from South Korean football since Guus Hiddink’s tenure ended. The team seemed to be slipping back into the old habits and entrenched failings that had plagued the game for generations before Hiddink arrived.
Do you really believe that South Korea’s national-team selection process is fair today?
Recent corruption scandals involving national-team selection
2024–2026: Alleged violations and unfairness in appointing the national-team coach
- Period: July 2024 to the present
- Major media outlets and sources: The Korea Economic Daily, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s audit findings, Yonhap News Agency, among others
- Details and evidence:
- In July 2024, allegations of hiring irregularities and preferential treatment erupted during the appointment of Hong Myung-bo as national-team coach. Park Joo-ho and other members of the Technical Development Committee claimed that the leadership had “ignored the established procedure and unilaterally chosen the coach in advance.”
- In response, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism launched a special audit of the Korea Football Association (KFA).
- After an audit lasting roughly four months, the ministry officially announced that it had identified “a total of 27 cases of illegal and inappropriate handling of affairs in the process of appointing the national-team coach.” It called for severe disciplinary action against the KFA president and other senior officials. The breach of fair procedure has since become a defining example of structural corruption in Korean football.
2023: Corruption in professional-club recruitment and selection involving agent kickbacks
- Period: June to September 2023
- Major media outlets and sources: Kyunghyang Shinmun, Hankyoreh, and Gyeonggi Ilbo (findings from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Criminal Division 9)
- Details and evidence:
- This was a classic case of corruption involving requests to select players and the payment of under-the-table money, with a former national-team coach and professional-club managers among those implicated.
- According to an investigation by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, a former national-team coach who served during the Qatar World Cup colluded with an agent to get his protégé signed by Ansan Greeners FC. He was indicted without detention on suspicion of giving tens of millions of won to the club’s manager and representative, in an alleged case of receiving bribes in breach of trust.
- The case shocked the football world by revealing that even a former national-team coach had used personal connections and money to lobby for a player and improperly interfere in the selection process.
2025: Sports Ethics Center uncovers allegations of “swapping out” a national-team player
- Period: April 2025
- Major media outlets and sources: Chosun Ilbo and the official announcement by the Sports Ethics Center
- Details and evidence:
- The Sports Ethics Center, an independent body that investigates corruption in sports, examined allegations that undue influence had been exerted during a sports organization’s national-team selection process, resulting in the improper replacement of a player.
- After its investigation confirmed that the allegations were true, the center issued the organization an institutional warning.
- The center described “corruption in national-team player selection as a serious offense comparable to match-fixing.” It also said that it would respond forcefully in the future, going beyond simple disciplinary measures to seek criminal punishment and refer cases for investigation. The statement brought unfair selection practices into the public spotlight.
These stories represent only a few examples. National-team places have not been awarded purely on merit for a long time—and that remains true today. Whether a player makes the national team can depend on where he comes from, who supports him and whether money is involved.
This is a game South Korea is already losing. The tragic reality that underprivileged footballers can be cast aside despite having the ability—amid all the lobbying and money changing hands—is the first reason Korean football’s illness has become so deep.
South Korean football has abandoned strategy for a relentless charge forward
Guus Hiddink, the hero of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, upended the conventional wisdom of Korean football when he took charge. At the time, the prevailing view was that Korean footballers lacked skill but possessed the world’s best fitness and fighting spirit. Hiddink identified the exact opposite problem: “Korean football does not lack technical ability; it lacks the kind of fitness football actually requires, and its culture is inefficient.”
Looking back, he was a truly exceptional manager. Korean players are clearly at a physical disadvantage compared with players from South America and Europe. That made it essential for them to build even greater fitness than their opponents. Fitness was also indispensable from a tactical standpoint, because a team cannot execute its strategy without it.
The mistaken idea of fitness—and the absence of “real fitness”
- The old misconception: Mistaking marathon-style endurance—running dozens of laps around the pitch for as long as possible—for good fitness.
- Hiddink’s diagnosis: The players lacked the “sprint ability” to maintain intense pressure for 90 minutes and accelerate explosively when necessary, as well as the “ability to recover quickly.” He identified these shortcomings as the reason their concentration collapsed after roughly the 25th minute of the second half.
- Analysis and solution: Hiddink abolished meaningless long-distance running and introduced a power program centered on scientific, high-intensity interval training—specifically the shuttle run, or 20-meter beep test. It created the foundation for world-class pressing football, combining explosive bursts during matches with the ability to maintain that intensity for 90 minutes.
South Korean players may not look as exhausted as they once did. But, as the match against Mexico showed, they were repeatedly beaten in one-on-one situations or dispossessed. Worse, as their frustration mounted, they resorted to clumsy fouls—pulling opponents back and tripping them when things did not go their way.
A rigid hierarchy that blocks communication
- The old misconception: Believing that strict seniority rules and formal behavior between older and younger players build team unity and fighting spirit.
- Hiddink’s diagnosis: A hierarchy based on age and status on the pitch is poison that slows decision-making and kills creativity. He found that younger players would hesitate to pass to a teammate in a better position because they were wary of senior players, while others could not perform at their best under the pressure.
- Analysis and solution: Hiddink banned the use of seniority-based titles and formal speech both on and off the pitch, requiring players to address one another by name or nickname. He also required coaches and players, as well as veterans and newcomers, to sit together at mealtimes, breaking down barriers to communication and establishing a faster, more egalitarian system on the field.
A horizontal organizational structure is essential if work is to run smoothly. It makes an organization more flexible and makes it easier to identify and fix problems. A rigid, top-down hierarchy ultimately becomes a shortcut to decline rather than improvement in an inflexible organizational culture. I think everyone knows that Japanese companies, unable to adapt to change because of their vertical structures, are ultimately now headed toward closure.
A poor understanding of modern tactics: the obsession with man-marking
- The old misconception: Believing that man-marking—having one player doggedly follow the opponent’s key attacker—is suited to Korea’s high-intensity style of football.
- Hiddink’s diagnosis: Man-marking, in which the entire defense can collapse when one player is beaten, is outdated in modern football. He also pointed to a major lack of understanding of four-man-back-line-based zonal defending and covering.
- Analysis and solution: Hiddink instilled a modern form of total football in which the team pressed and attacked as one, keeping the distance between the attacking and defensive lines compact—within 50 meters. Through repeated tactical training, players moved beyond a system dependent on individual defending and learned to share space and cover one another, greatly improving defensive stability.
This is the central issue. If we were asked to name South Korea’s greatest footballers on the world stage, the answer would be Park Ji-sung after Hiddink and, more recently, Son Heung-min. Star players are necessary, but while other national teams typically build strategies around players whose performances are only somewhat above average, South Korea’s team relies on its stars almost completely. In the end, its unsophisticated game plan amounts to shouting, “Just hoof it forward—go, go, go!”
Hiddink recognized that this approach could never rise above the level of a third-rate local friendly and strengthened the team’s ability to defend, win the ball and pass in groups of three or four. I remember it clearly: under the Hiddink system, players who were always ready to help one another stayed close together. Today, by contrast, players charge forward on their own, calling out that they will send the ball upfield, only to lose possession to the opposition. That has become routine.
Everyone knew then, as they know now, that South Korea could never beat overseas players in head-to-head battles. But under Hiddink, the players had no choice but to follow his instructions, even when they were skeptical. His precise diagnosis of the underlying problem and the prescription that followed produced a spectacular result.
Now the team has reverted to its old ways, as if suffering from amnesia. Why? Because, as explained above, senior figures—the association president and the coach—insist that blindly launching the ball far forward, hoping someone gets on the end of it, is a brilliant strategy. They demand obedience, and the team repeats the same pattern, booting the ball long and losing it every time. It is like the punishment of Sisyphus: rolling a boulder toward the top of a hill, only to watch it tumble back down just before reaching the summit.
Perhaps they learned nothing from Hiddink. Maybe it was resentment, but they seem to have truly disliked him.
Because anyone who brings Hiddink’s lessons back into the conversation is treated like a traitor.
Changing South Korean football is the key to competitiveness
The core of Hiddink’s diagnosis was that South Korean football was trapped by “blind fighting spirit and distorted customs.” He recognized the players’ hidden technical potential and built the infrastructure—scientific fitness training and a more egalitarian team culture—needed to help them realize it fully.
But the entrenched failings and bad habits of Korean football refused to accept Hiddink’s judgment and instead returned to the past.
South Korea could become a global football power, but because of these various ills, it is showing only mediocre ability even within Asia.
For now, South Korea is somehow managing to edge past China. But the day may come when China catches up.
It is time once again to identify South Korean football’s chronic problems and make a serious effort to fix them.
Thank you.
