This week saw current Notts County Director of Football, Sven-Goran Eriksson, linked to the managerial post for the North Korean national team.
North Korea have successfully qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2010. This will be their second time ever to be participating in the World Cup finals, the last time happend all the way back in 1966. Majority of the team is made up of players playing in the local league, which is no doubt a decent league, but surely not the greatest in the world and quality wise probably not even near to the neighbouring K-league. The only player playing in Europe is captain Hong Yong-Jo. The striker plays in the Russian Premier League for FC Rostov. So it's a huge achievement for this nation to reach the World Cup finals and you would think manager, Kim Jong-Hun, has done a miraculous job, but no, the North Korean FA want to replace him with Mr. Eriksson.
In some parts it's understandble. The name Sven-Goran Eriksson is well respected in the footballing world and would bring a lot of attention to the game in the country. But Eriksson lives off his past success. He brought titles and awards to Benfica in the 80's and early 90' having the countries best players available to him. Some members of the famous Portuguese "Golden Generation" in the beginning of the 1990's with Rui Costa and Paolo Sousa. He also did well in Italy, most notably with Lazio, but Lazio at the time was one of the riches clubs in the world. At international level he has never had any success. He managed England for 5 years, 3 major tournament, but never got past the quarter-final stage. It's a good achivement, as only Brazil can boast this record, but being incharge of a football mad country like England, you're expected to do better. Eriksson failed misrably at Mexico. The international team that's one of the two biggest and the best of the region, were a laughing stock under Eriksson after losing to Jamaica and Honduras. Mexico were in real danger of missing out on an automatic qualifing spot for the 2010 World Cup, so the FA sacked the Swede, who had only managed to lead his team to 1 victory in 7 non-friendly matches.
Eriksson himself has rejected the rumours of him taking over the post at North Korea, but as we know, where's smoke, there's fire. But why would the North Korea FA even try to look for a different manager? Current man in charge, Mr. Jong-Hun, has done incredible work considering the resources available to him. The football his side has played hasn't been attractive, 0-0 figuers as lot in their fixtures list, but it's been effective and brought the results, beating off the likes of Saudi Arabia and Iran, who both have been part of the World Cup festivities in recent tournaments. So my question is - if it ain't broke, why fix it?
