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Ulsan HD fire Shin Tae-yong with relegation battle on the horizon

Published: 10 Oct. 2025, 10:53

JIM BULLEY
[email protected]

Former Ulsan HD FC head coach Shin Tae-yong [YONHAP]

Ulsan HD terminated the contract of head coach Shin Tae-yong on Thursday evening, cutting ties with the former national team manager as the team changes hands for the fourth time in 15 months.

CEO Kim Gwang-guk also resigned on Thursday.

Shin, who had previously managed by the Korean and Indonesian national teams, took the helm of Ulsan just two months ago. He replaced Kim Pan-gon, whose tenure had seen the Ulsan club fall from three consecutive K League titles to seventh place in the 12-team league.

Shin’s two months at Ulsan proved even more disastrous. With just one win over that spell, the Tigers dropped to 10th in the league and are now locked into the lower tier of the league, the Final B.

In the K League, the top-tier teams are split into two groups for the final five games of the season. The top half of the table become Final A, only playing each other with no chance of falling below sixth place in the table. The bottom half become Final B, and fight to avoid relegation with no hope of climbing above seventh.

Ulsan have played in Final A for the last nine seasons, but this year will have to fight to avoid the relegation playoffs.

In the K League, the 12th-place team is immedaitely relegated while the 11th- and 10th-place teams face K League 2 teams in the playoffs. Ulsan are currently in 10th and trail ninth-place Suwon FC by a single point.

Ulsan’s troubles began in the middle of last season, when the Korean national team swept in and poached manager Hong Myung-bo. Ulsan briefly pivoted to caretaker manager Lee Kyung-soo before bringing in former Malaysia head coach Kim.

Kim was eventually dropped for Shin, and with his departure Ulsan will now push youth director Roh Sang-rae into the hot seat for the remainder of the season.

BY JIM BULLEY [[email protected]]