No-nonsense tactician tasked with bringing charismatic leadership to nat'l football team

Hong, on the other hand, has never been an overly expressive coach. He has tried hard in recent years to shed himself of the image of a difficult-to-approach coach -- he once revealed that he had looked into Myers-Briggs personality test results for Ulsan players to better learn their idiosyncrasies -- but reputations die hard.

Hong took Ulsan HD FC over the hump and to back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023 by getting the most out of a team whose whole had been less than the sum of their parts in the past. Hong's leadership, more so than his tactics, has been credited with molding Ulsan into a team, when a lesser coach would have left them merely as a collection of talented players.

There is no shortage of talent for the men's national team, with Europe-based stars, such as Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur, Lee Kang-in of Paris Saint-Germain, Kim Min-jae of Bayern Munich and Hwang Hee-chan of Wolverhampton Wanderers, all having been mainstays.

Hong will once again be tasked with building a team out of that talent, something that Klinsmann wasn't able to do.

jeeho@yna.co.kr
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