How Paulo Bento Changed South Korea’s Style During Long Spell As Head Coach

No nation has ever gained the World Cup with a international head coach.

That statistic seems to be set to stay at Qatar 2022, with all eight international locations within the quarter-finals having native head coaches.

That development shouldn’t be too shocking. The international locations which might be good at producing soccer gamers are additionally good at producing soccer coaches. Solely 9 international locations on the World Cup had head coaches from abroad. Solely three of these groups: Belgium, Mexico and Iran, have been within the prime 20 of the FIFA rankings at the beginning of the event.

By the point, the event had reached its knockout levels, eight of these 9 international locations had been knocked out. The only real surviving abroad head coach was South Korea’s Portuguese head coach Paulo Bento.

With one World Cup cycle coming to an finish, nationwide groups might be contemplating which path they need to go in, and head coaches might be weighing up whether or not they need to spend one other 4 years in control of a nationwide staff. Paulo Bento has already made that alternative. He introduced he would go away his submit following South Korea’s 4-1 loss to Brazil.

That loss means he may not make international headlines, however South Korea’s enchancment below Paulo Bento is obvious.

South Korea certified for the 2014 World Cup on purpose distinction and completed backside of their group with one level. In 2018, a dramatic late win in opposition to Germany papered over the cracks. As soon as once more South Korea struggled by way of the ultimate qualifying spherical and produced uninteresting, unambitious performances in opposition to Sweden and Mexico.

Against this, qualification for 2022 was a breeze, and Bento’s build-up play ways meant that within the group stage, South Korea had extra possession, made extra passes and crosses, and had extra photographs and photographs heading in the right direction than within the group stage in 2018.

South Korea’s improved play comes partly from Bento’s squad choice. Ignoring calls for to name up whoever is perhaps on type on the time, he selects every place as a result of sure standards. Goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu’s sturdy distribution expertise meant he was given the nod over the hero of the Germany match Jo Hyeon-woo. Bento’s holding midfielders will need to have a quick sufficient dash to have the ability to cowl the full-back place ought to the full-backs lose place in superior positions, and the attributes that Bento requires from his quantity 9 have meant that Ok League prime scorers like Joo Min-gyu usually don’t get a name up.

Nationwide staff head coaches get little or no time with their squads to implement concepts and ways. For South Korea, whose stars are based mostly on a distinct continent, journey time eats into that much more.

To maximise time with gamers, Bento’s employees have used pre-match warm-ups to work on positioning. Whereas the forwards heat up across the penalty space, Bento’s coaches place the full-backs on the wings and throw or kick balls to Korea’s middle backs to regulate and shortly distribute to specific positions.

Paulo Bento is South Korea’s longest serving head coach, and the staff has benefited from having the identical coach for the entire World Cup cycle.

Shin Tae-yong had solely two full aggressive matches in addition to pleasant video games forward of the 2018 World Cup and Hong Myung-bo solely had pleasant matches to arrange for the 2014 World Cup. Each of them have been up-and-coming prospects who had coached on the Olympics, however had their reputations broken by being thrust into the nationwide staff too early of their careers and with out sufficient time to actually make an impression on the staff forward of the World Cup.

The worldwide development in the mean time appears to be for extra native managers, with Morocco and Japan’s World Cup performances probably dashing that development up. South Korea in 2010 additionally reached the final 16 with native supervisor Huh Jung-moo.

A part of the arguments for native coaches comes all the way down to concepts about soccer tradition, and that every staff ought to have a coach that matches their tradition. The Korean Soccer Affiliation, like England, has set about growing its personal soccer DNA. That DNA features a proactive fashion of play, a moderately imprecise time period that permits head coaches flexibility, however one that may be seen in Paulo Bento’s South Korean aspect and was missing in 2018.

Some critics may need argued for a extra defensive, reactive strategy for South Korea’s knockout match in opposition to Brazil, however such an strategy in all probability wouldn’t have gotten South Korea by way of the group stage within the first place, and wouldn’t have had neutrals excited in the way in which that South Korea’s strategy to the Ghana match did.

Whoever the subsequent South Korean supervisor is, the KFA wants to make sure that the staff builds on the enhancements made during the last 4 years, and {that a} long-term plan is in place, targeted on the 2026 World Cup.