For 4 years and 4 months, the leader who shared the joys and sorrows appeared as an enemy general. Former Korean soccer team coach Paulo Bento (Portugal) took the lead of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) national team.
On the 10th (Korean time), coach Bento took over as the UAE’s command tower. His contract runs until 2026. It is interesting that coach Bento leads the UAE in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). This is because the UAE is highly likely to face Korea in the 2026 International Football Federation (FIFA) North and Central America World Cup Asian 2nd round starting in November and next year’s AFC Asian Cup.
The news that coach Bento, who has dealt with the current national team’s key players, will appear as an enemy is bad news for Korea. Coach Bento, who took the lead of the Korean national team in 2018, transplanted ‘build-up soccer’ by leading the team for a long time.
There were concerns, but Bentuho had a good record of 35 wins, 13 draws and 9 losses in 57 matches. Korea’s national team 메이저사이트추천 A defeated Portugal in the finals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and advanced to the round of 16 after 12 years. When the contract with the national team ended in December of the same year, fans nicknamed him ‘Ben Budge (Bento + father)’ and praised his achievements.
After returning to his home country, Bento was occasionally named as a candidate for coaching the Portuguese and Polish national soccer teams, but it did not lead to his contract. After a break of about half a year, he returned to the Asian stage.
It is not the first time that the national soccer team has dealt with a former coach like this. Excluding the current manager, Jurgen Klinsmann, there are a total of eight foreign coaches who have taken the lead in Korea. Among them, there is a record of encountering enemies with Guus Hiddink, Dick Adbogat, and the late coach Pim Fairback (above Netherlands), who are familiar to Korean fans, and clashed a total of four times.
Team A met with former coaches in friendly matches and World Cup Asian final qualifiers and achieved a favorable record of 2 wins and 2 draws. In particular, in the Asian final qualifier two years ago, Bentuho secured a ticket to the Qatar World Cup by winning 1 win and 1 draw against Adbogat’s Iraq. In two friendly matches 10 years ago, they met coaches Verbeck and Hiddink, who led Australia and Turkey, respectively, and recorded 1 win and 1 draw each.
Korea is also dominant in the match against UAE, led by coach Bento. They are ahead with 13 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses. In particular, for 16 years since 2006, Korea has been so overwhelming that it has not been defeated. In the most recent Asian qualifying round for the World Cup in Qatar held in March 2022, he lost 0-1, but at the time he had already qualified, so it was not a meaningful match. Fans are interested in whether Team A will be able to laugh at the reunion with coach Bento.