Dutch team’s former coach set to join Hong’s staff

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Dutch team’s former coach set to join Hong’s staff

Published: 15 Dec. 2013, 23:09

Ton du Chatinier

Coach Hong Myung-bo of the Korean national football team will have a foreign staff member with European league coaching experience. According to Netherlands media yesterday, the Korea Football Association is close to sealing an agreement with Ton du Chatinier, 54, former coach of FC Utrecht of the Eredivisie (Holland league).

The report said Chatinier and the KFA are discussing details about the contract, and the KFA will likely announce the deal officially this week. The KFA also confirmed that the report is true, saying Chatinier will be a part of the Taegeuk Warriors in the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

Chatinier will likely work on improving the team’s defense as it struggled against European teams composed of robust players. The Taegeuk Warriors will face world No. 11 Belgium, No. 22 Russia and No. 26 Algeria in the group round matches that kick off in June.

Chatinier played as a defender only with FC Utrecht from 1977 to 1987. After retiring, he led the club as the coach from 2008 to 2011. Under his leadership, FC Utrecht allowed only 33 goals in 34 games during the 2009-10 season. He will also work on player analysis.

After the 2011 season, Chatinier joined Russia’s FC Anzhi Makhachkala under former Korean national team Coach Guus Hiddink’s leadership and worked as one of Hiddink’s staff members. Chatinier and Hong met each other when Hong joined Hiddink for five months for a coaching program.

The KFA expects Chatinier to be an asset, especially in a match against Russia, which is predicted by football analysts to compete with Korea for one of the two spots to advance to the second round, while top-seeded Belgium is predicted to win Group H. Analysts predicted that the match against Russia, the first match for Korea, will practically determine the fate of the Taegeuk Warriors for the second round.

“Algeria will be a relatively easy opponent not only for us but also for Belgium and Russia,” analyst Shin Mun-sun said. “If we predict that Belgium will advance to the second round as the winner of the group, the other second-round spot from the group will be decided by the match between Korea and Russia.”

Chatinier welcomes the challenge.

“Participating in a World Cup event must be great,” Chatinier was quoted as saying. “I think it would be another great moment in my career as a coach.”

BY kwon sang-soo [sakwon80@joongang.co.kr]