Hwang Sun-hong, 55, a “legend” for leading South Korean soccer’s offense as a player, has marked a new turning point in his coaching career by winning an Asian Games gold medal under the Korean flag. Hwang, who coached South Korea to a gold medal in men’s soccer at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games on July 7, is a veteran striker who scored 50 goals in 103 A-match appearances for the national team as a player .His 50 A-match goals are the second most by a South Korean male player, behind former national team coach Cha Bum-geun (58).Since making his A-match debut in December 1988 against Japan in a group stage match at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup, where he scored his debut goal in a 2-0 win, Hwang has been a consistent starter for the national team. In the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, he scored the winning goal in the first group game against Poland to give South Korea its first-ever victory (2-0) at the World Cup and contributed greatly to the ‘Fourth Place Myth ‘.In 1998, while playing for Cerezo Osaka in Japan, Hwang became the J-League’s top scorer with 24 goals in a season, but he said goodbye to the Taeguk Mark in a friendly against Brazil in November 2002 and retired from playing altogether the following February to pursue a coaching career .After coaching his last team as a player, the Jeonnam Dragons, Hwang made his debut as a head coach at Busan Eye Park in December 2007 and enjoyed success as a coach with the Pohang Steelers, where he was in charge from November 2010 to 2015.In 2012, he won his first title with the club in the Korean Football Association (FA) Cup, and in 2013, he had his best season as a coach, winning both the K League 1 and FA Cup, playing sophisticated passing soccer without foreign players and earning nicknames like “Steel Taka” and “Hwang Sun Daewongun .After leaving Pohang, he returned to professional coaching in mid-2016, taking the helm of FC Seoul, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. He won his second K League 1 title with Seoul in 2016, but was forced to resign after the team finished mid-table in 2017 and slipped to the bottom of the table early in 2018.He didn’t even get a chance to work at Yanbian Fooder in China until late 2018, when the team was disbanded .After a hiatus, he attempted to redeem himself in 2020 as the first head coach of the K League 2 Daejeon Hana Citizens, a corporate club, but he was effectively sacked after less than a year as the promotion-hungry team remained in mid-table after the midseason. After Pohang, he hadn’t had much success as a head coach, so the U-23 national team job, which he took up in September 2021, could be his “last chance” as a coach .While there were some who argued that it was a “step backwards” for a coach who had already achieved success in the professional ranks to move to the U-23s, Hwang reaffirmed his goal of becoming an “A-team coach” and vowed to prove it at the Asian Games and Olympics. Despite the ambitious start, the first gateway, the Asian Games, has been a thorny one. The Asian Games were postponed for a year due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and the team was criticized for its 0-3 quarterfinal loss to Japan at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Asian Cup in June last year. The two away trials against China in June this year, just days before the postponed Asian Games, were also a crisis for Hwang. A 0-1 defeat in the second game amid injuries to his players further raised doubts about his ability to lead the team to a third consecutive Asian Games title. The controversial inclusion of Lee Sang-min (Seongnam) in the final roster after he was suspended for drunk driving, the injury of Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain) and the timing of his arrival were just a few of the headaches and variables that came with the tournament, which also kicked off the Paris Olympic qualifiers, and the challenge of managing two similar but different age groups at the same time. In men’s soccer at the Asian Games, the prospect of winning a gold medal could also have been seen as a burden, but Hwang proved his leadership skills by winning the whole tournament. During the tournament, he used a variety of players, pushing hard when necessary and not hesitating to make pragmatic choices, such as leaving Lee Kang-in and Jung Woo-young (Stuttgart) out of the starting lineup for the quarterfinal against tough hosts China. He also stood out for his use of keywords such as “pabu chimjoo-‘breaking the pot to cook rice and sinking the ship to return home’, meaning to fight with determination and determination) during the departure and “the best enemy is within us” (which he said after the quarterfinal victory over China to keep his players on their guard).Hwang was due to be evaluated by the Football Association on whether to extend his contract through to the Paris Olympics following the Asian Games, but he has now 스포츠토토 achieved his goal of a third consecutive title.