After World Cup retreat, Moreno turns Warriors into philosophers of football 

After the Taeguk Warriors retreated sheepishly from a bruising and embarrassing performance at the FIFA World Cup 2026, Korean football faced a reckoning.

The dismal showing — sent packing at the group stage — was just the beginning for a Korea Football Association (KFA) in desperate need of some soul-searching to exterminate a rot that had infested it arguably for years.

The cracks started to appear with the hiring of Jürgen Klinsmann in 2023 and his sacking a year later, with KFA technical director Michael Mueller effectively thrown under the bus by the Korean football tsardom over the association's opaque hiring practices, a foreshadowing of sorts of Hong Myung-bo’s reappointment as manager.

The subsequent pivot back to the iconic defender after a weak stint as manager at the 2014 World Cup, a move that ultimately exposed the association to parliamentary scrutiny over its obfuscatory operations, invited the return of a turgid style of football synonymous with Hong, who was never known as a master tactician.

That much was apparent all the way back at the 2002 World Cup. With Korea down 1-0 to Italy and 7 minutes to the final whistle in the Warriors’ first-ever knockout stage match, manager Guus Hiddink needed to bring on another attacker, and of all the defensive players to give way, it was his captain, Hong, who came off.

Into his place — and his armband — slid fellow stalwart Yoo Sang-chul, a box-to-box midfielder and Korea's most tactically astute player eulogized by the great and the good of Korean football after his premature passing in 2021 as the country's ultimate all-rounder.

After quickly marshaling the team to an equalizer, Yoo set the tempo, distributing from the back and controlling the side’s shape until Ahn Jung-hwan took a leap of fate for that legendary golden goal.

As the players on the pitch chased Ahn to the corner flag in celebration, Hong was left to race down the touchline in his tracksuit, his attributes deemed unsuitable for staging a comeback against an Italian golden generation.

That same one-dimensionality let down the quality of the side’s star power in Mexico this summer, often leaving the likes of Son Heung-min, Lee Kang-in and Hwang In-beom to play intuitively — but often out of sync in the face of an apparent dearth of a game plan, while Kim Min-jae was left to organize a defense that couldn’t keep up with the zonal low-blocking he is used to running in Europe.

An overreliance on Son meant attacks developed in a telegraphed direction, and the lack of a proper nine, with Cho Gue-sung relegated to guest appearances, meant the captain had no one ahead of him when he charged up the pitch.

Without a dedicated Yoo-esque holding midfielder to control traffic and keep the side organized, there were at times 30 to 40 yards between the defensive line and the midfield, offering opponents an expansive playground to surge into.

Then there was the use of wingbacks, which have made a resurgence in Europe's top leagues in recent years after decades of a flat four across the back.

Ironically, or perhaps just frustratingly, this should have been the tactical element Hong should have actually been able to execute: Hiddink deployed Lee Eul-yong, Lee Young-pyo and Song Chong-gug on either side of Hong and his two fellow center halves in 2002 to great effectiveness in both attack and defense, with four assists and two goals between the lot and only three goals conceded up to the third-place match.

Yet in Mexico, there was an evident failure by the defensive unit to shift zones as one side pushed up in a largely fruitless effort to contribute to attacks, leaving huge pockets that ultimately led to the South African goal that sent Korea packing.

All of this crescendoed into a prosecution of the KFA in the court of public opinion and even a presidential admonishment, not to mention National Assembly and criminal investigations.

For fans, then, Thursday’s friendly, the Warriors’ first match since tucking tail in June, was more than just a search for signs of new life; it was a referendum on a football mafia that — at least on the surface — was attempting to go straight in the form of Spanish interim manager Robert Moreno, who was hired through the association’s first open recruitment for the role.

The former Monaco, Granada and Spanish national team gaffer impressed the KFA with his preparations, from his familiarity with the quirks of Korean football to his data-driven approach and tactical versatility, giving hope that a new dawn was on the horizon.

And so it was, then, that the squad took to the pitch hoping to kick off the Chuseok harvest festival holiday with a cornucopia of goals — or at least a better showing than the dismal result over the summer.

As soon as the match kicked off, Korea played aggressively, making intrepid forays into the final third while staying decently organized in defense.

Ecuador, meanwhile, was just aggressive, diving into tackles and swinging legs like scythes — finishing the game with five yellow cards.

The Warriors' prematch boot camp under a new secretary of football paid off: Goals came in the form of a confident rip from distance by Oh Hyeon-gyu in the 54th minute (it did take a deflection, but his willingness to have a go at full trot was commendable and proved to be worth it), a vintage Son Heung-min curler not 12 yards off the byline with a Toni Kroos-esque free kick three minutes later and a placed shot from Lee Dong-gyeong after silky buildup play gave the side a 3-0 win and the fans something to cheer about — finally.

The new man in the hot seat, who was working at a bank when he was recruited to be an analyst for the Barcelona reserve team, built a career on keen analytical acumen with a sharp eye for acute shifts in the run of play that morphed into strategic flexibility as matches unfold.

That adaptability proved to be just what the doctor ordered.

The Warriors played with high intensity right from the get-go. That's not to say there was a lack of organizational discipline; far from it. It was clear that the importance of passing options was drilled into the side, with at least two open players available to the man in possession. Also apparent was the importance of roles, with positional discipline in defense; gone were the random clusters of players harrying after the ball. There was clear cohesion among the back four, with the entire defensive unit sprinting up as one to push the line up as soon as Ecuador played it back.

In attack, the team broke downfield at pace, with touches of Wengerball in the form of backheels and flicks, and there was more than a whiff of Barcelona once in the final third, with the side setting up a siege outside the Ecuadorian penalty area, moving the ball around in search of an opening.

Moreno’s pitch-side disposition — active in the technical area, directing traffic and, at times, reining his boys in — stood in stark contrast to the image that flashed across the screen in the dying minutes of Korea’s World Cup matches: a despondent Hong tethered motionless to the bench, his eyes following a pinballing ball with a thousand-yard stare as his players were left to fend for themselves.

Thursday's match wasn't picture perfect: At times, the emphasis on speed in attack got ahead of the team, resulting in poor link-up play, but the movement off the ball hinted at a chemistry that just needs a bit more tweaking. Defensively, the low block didn't come naturally and it occasionally took the lads time to get in the right spot.

And while there was tactical discipline, there was less actual discipline as the side racked up an unusual number of bookings for a friendly at four. Perhaps it was an attempt to show the manager that the fire was lit, that the limpness at the World Cup wasn't a mentality issue, it was a motivational one.

Whether this was beginner's luck or signs of a full revolution will be borne out over the side's friendly against Uruguay Monday night and two more in October, but after his first 90 minutes, Moreno appears to be the general the Warriors — and the country — have been waiting for.

BY THOMAS MCCARTHY [[email protected]]