Jurgen Klinsmann still winless after disappointing Wales draw

Son Heung-Min reacts after an international friendly between Korea and Wales at Cardiff City Stadium in Cardiff, Britain on Thursday. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

The Jurgen Klinsmann drought extended to five games on Thursday as Korea held Wales to a distinctly lackluster 0-0 draw in Cardiff in a game that the Welsh team very openly did not want to play and the Taeguk Warriors proved entirely unable to win.

Thursday’s game was the first of two for Korea in a Britain-based international break designed to give key European players like Tottenham Hotspur’s Son Heung-min and Bayern Munich’s Kim Min-jae a less challenging travel schedule. The Taeguk Warriors next face Saudi Arabia on Sept. 12.

For Wales, meanwhile, Thursday’s game was viewed as a necessary evil. Currently in the middle of Euro 2024 qualifiers, Wales were required by FIFA to schedule a friendly to correspond with the scheduled qualifier group stage matchday that they were not taking part of.

With their next group stage match on against Latvia on Monday, Thursday’s meeting was an unwanted distraction that head coach Rob Page very publicly said he “did not want to play.”

But play they did, and when the dust settled on a very dry 90 minutes it was probably Wales that had some out marginally on top. The home side created more opportunities, breaking through the defense on a couple of occasions and proving more threatening than the visitors.

At the other end of the pitch, Korea struggled to create any real chances. Son, boxed in by a wall of defenders at all times, was unable to have any real impact, leaving Korea with a 0-0 draw and Klinsmann in serious trouble.

The German head coach, appointed to lead Korea earlier this year, has had the worst start to his national team Korea of any manager in Korean history, winless after five games with three draws and two losses.

Those results only compound an increasingly negative narrative that has followed Klinsmann since his appointment was first announced.

First, there were questions over the appointment itself — Klinsmann has had a famously up and down career and has been criticized for his lack of tactics in the past.

Then the losses started piling up and the questions did too, only for increasingly irate fans to find another reason to complain when Klinsmann opted to spend the majority of the last few months in the United States rather than Korea.

"The team is in the process of developing toward Qatar," Klinsmann said after the game. "These are the games where we test our players to see how far they are in the development and how we can put pieces together towards Qatar."

"It's a normal process between two World Cups that there's a type of a turnover into the next generation of players."

Captain Son also came to Klinsmann's defense after the game.

"As a player, I should be thinking about how to make this team better," Son said. "We have a lot to learn from this match, and there are areas where we have to get better."

"I understand where fans come from, as someone who's been on the national team for a long time. I am not saying the coach is always right, but I also don't think fans are always right, either."

With the criticism growing, Klinsmann desperately needs a win when the Taeguk Warriors take on Saudi Arabia next week. That game will be played at St. James’ Park in Newcastle and will be broadcast in Korea at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]