“Fans’ support helped me a lot”
A season that started with a Taeha drama and ended with a Taeha drama. Pohang Steelers coach Park Tae-ha’s (56) season was full of affection for Pohang fans.
Park Tae-ha, a native of Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, spent 30 years in Pohang and devoted his entire career to the Pohang Steelers. He is a true “Pohang Man” who played only in Pohang from 1991 to 2001.
Even after retirement, he started as a coach for Pohang and became a leader. After coaching the A-team and FC Seoul, he became the first coach at Yanbian Fudder. After coaching the Chinese women’s B-team, he expanded his horizons in soccer as a technical member of the TSG of the Korean Professional Football League. Ahead of the 2024 season, he returned to his hometown as a head coach after being called to coach Pohang.
It was not an easy decision and challenge. There were also concerns about whether Park, who had a hiatus of his coach Kim Ki-dong from Pohang, will be able to manage the team well. However, he changed the mood from the start. He garnered dramatic scores in the early days of this season, earning him the nickname “Taeha Drama.”
Coach Park and Pohang, who continued their strides until the end of the season, have finally achieved the result of their second consecutive win at the Korea Cup. In the sixth and final match of the AFC Champions League stage, the team ended the season with a 3-1 victory over Vissel Kobe.
After finishing one season as a coach in his old team, he said, “As a player and as a coach, I felt the greatest sense of responsibility from the beginning when I took charge of the team called Pohang,” adding, “These are actually what most fans and people did. Fortunately, there was a part that escaped the concern from the beginning. In the middle, the crisis came, but I also received a big gift of overcoming it and winning the Korea Cup. There is a regret, but if I evaluate the entire team, I would like to say that it has been a good and successful year because I even lifted the trophy.”
“The parts that were concerned about in the beginning were dispelled to some extent, and the united results of veteran players and junior players were shown well in the beginning. There was a big problem with the departure of the injured player. That’s a pity because there was no player composition to supplement if an injured player occurred. As a result, there was a bit of regret in the second half, but I think I was able to wash away the bad things at once because I received big gifts as a result of the players’ efforts at the end,” he said, directly mentioning the disappointing parts and results.
When Park took charge of Pohang, the biggest concern was the hiatus. He served as the technical chairman of the Korea Professional Football Federation’s Technology Research Group. He is evaluated as making a remarkable contribution to the early system construction of TSG. However, even though he was close to the field, he could not completely erase his worries about the four years that he lacked in field experience. 메이저사이트
Rather, Park’s experience at TSG laid the groundwork for him to return to the field and demonstrate his capabilities. “(His experience at TSG) helped me a lot,” he said. “I learned a lot about things that looked different from the outside, not from instructing the players directly. When I returned to the field, I was able to fully utilize the experience in terms of team tactics. As I watched many games as the technical committee chairman, I was able to fully understand the strengths and weaknesses and tactical aspects of the K-League, and it helped me a lot as well.”