Jeonbuk Hyundai completed its accompaniment with head coach Dan Petrescu in 10 months. Jeonbuk has committed atrocities of breaking up with its coach for two consecutive years.
Jeonbuk announced Petrescu’s voluntary resignation on Wednesday. Feeling responsibility for his team’s poor performance, Petrescu decided to drop the baton himself, and his team accepted the decision, ending his move.
The breakup between Jeonbuk and Petrescu was expected. Jeonbuk has fallen to the bottom of the league (12th) with three draws and two losses in its first five matches since the opening of this season’s league. It was the first time since 2008 (14th) that the team ranked the lowest in five rounds. Even if the team expanded the scope to official matches, it had one win, five draws and three losses. The team did not see the attacking soccer under the Petrescu system that fans had been hoping for.
It is notable that Jeonbuk is repeating its coach’s brutal history.
Jeonbuk has been a strong team that has won the league title eight times since 2010. Expectations are so high that the team fell below the third place only once in last season (ranking fourth) during this period. Even former coach Kim Sang-sik, who recorded one league and one Korea Cup win each for three years, voluntarily resigned after 10 league matches (three wins, one draw and six losses) due to his poor performance. Prior to that, Jose Moraes (Portugal) also finished his team’s schedule due to sluggishness in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League (ACL), even though he recorded two league wins and one Korea Cup win. Petrescu, who performed worse than them, packed his bags even before summer came. During his absence, Korean coaches including Park Won-jae will lead Jeonbuk.
Question marks over whether Jeonbuk will be able to rebuild the prestigious family in the North. It is not easy for firefighters to change teams at once during a season. A soccer source said, “Pre-season is an important time that determines a season’s farming. It is not a good thing for a coach to leave the team at that time. It is not easy for a coach who plays the role of a firefighter to change his color in a short period of time.”
In fact, Suwon Samsung and Gangwon FC, which replaced their coaches in April and May last season, ended up with automatic relegation and entry into the playoff, respectively. Former coach Petrescu put the team, which was ranked 10th, up to fourth place, but failed to come up with an answer to “what is Jeonbuk’s soccer” in the process. 룸알바
“He is the best coach we can save,” said Park Ji-sung, Jeonbuk’s technical director, when appointing Petrescu in June last year. Attention is focusing on who Park will bring as the coach to regain the pride of a prestigious family.