Seoul to Sydney: Verbeek Reflects

by Jesse Fink

Recently your sometime Soccerphile correspondent had the opportunity to speak to Australia coach Pim Verbeek over a coffee or two in an east Sydney cafe.

The 52-year-old Dutchman has been in the country six months, earned four points from two World Cup qualifiers and managed (so far) to charm a press pack that was initially sceptical - even hostile - about his appointment.

He has settled in Manly, an idyllic beachside suburb, can walk down the street relatively unnoticed and is free of the 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week media scrutiny he was under in Seoul, where he served as assistant national coach to Guus Hiddink and Dick Advocaat and then had a brief spell as the big boss himself before quitting on the occasion of the Taeguk Warriors' elimination from the 2007 Asian Cup.

His new Australian adventure is not without its challenges - player availability foremost among his concerns - but Verbeek makes it clear (in a full interview to be published in Inside Sport magazine this month) Australia is a relative doddle compared to working for the Korean Football Association and its entrenched "difficult culture".

Korea, he says, was "quite exciting" to work for but he had "too many fights" with the KFA over calling up players to training to be able to continue as national-team coach and give 100 per cent.

The primary cause of that conflict was "the pressure I had all the time from [K-League] clubs and influences from Samsung, LG, Hyundai, [the companies] behind all those clubs".

The pressure eventually became too much to bear, and this was the reason he decided to quit Korea.

"[I asked myself] 'Is this fun?' [My answer was] 'No, it's not fun any more.'"

Verbeek maintains it had nothing to do with the infamous brothel escapades of four Korea players in Jakarta during the Asian Cup.

"I never knew that story. I never heard of it. And my staff also didn't know of that story… [we had] no idea what had happened."

All that aside, he retains great admiration for Korean footballers.

"I like Korea. I like especially the mentality of the players. They have a fantastic mentality. To work with Korean players is paradise. The work rate is unbelievable, mentally they're very strong, they never complain, they're good football players, they're left- and right- footed, all of them, and they're very willing to learn. What more could you want as a coach?"

Australia, meanwhile, is heading down a path laid with orange cobblestones. It has a Dutch coach in Verbeek, a Dutch technical director in Rob Baan and, as Les Murray recently wrote for SBS football portal The World Game, "a Dutch technical ideology.... has permeated our game, right down to the boot straps of our six-year-olds who are now playing small sided games. The gold in the green and gold has taken on a decidedly orange hue."

Korea, of course, went down that path well before the Aussies, bringing in Guus Hiddink to revolutionise the local game from top to bottom way back in 2000.

So was Verbeek shocked the KFA turned the clock back and plumped for Huh Jung-moo as his replacement?

"I really was surprised because they always told me they definitely wanted to go for a foreign coach."

Which country is heading in the right direction will be made much clearer once the crucial round of June WCQs is over.

Jesse Fink

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