A New Perspective on Son's Daegu FC Resignation

Son Hyun-joon resigned from his post as Daegu FC manager on May 22nd to the surprise of many supporters. The Brazilian André (behind) will take over as an interim manger for the time being, but will a change at the top change the team's fortunes? Is Daegu's place in the table actually Son's fault? 
(Photo via daegufc.co.kr)

Many Daegu fans were excited and pleasantly surprised when we secured promotion by beating Daejeon 1-0 at home last season. Moreover, our CEO Mr. Cho made a vow to make our team strong enough to survive and stand tall with other K League Classic teams. With his remarks, a large number of fans would have imagined oDaegu fighting shoulder to shoulder with the giant clubs with huge confidence and pride. However, Mr. Cho's dream cracked in the first hurdle with our manger’s resignation confirmed on Monday.

Son Hyun-joon's resignation is a bit shocking, and the breaking news has divided supporters. Some fans were very welcoming to his decision to leave while others are disappointed. Many people think it is too early for him to make that hard decision. Even though we lost 4 games in a row this month, we are ranked 11th with 9 points, which is just 2 points behind Gwangju.

Personally, I don’t think the finger of blame should be pointed at Son. Of course, he left us behind after some poor results, but we have to think about one condition he has never had that everyone else has: help. He doesn’t have anywhere near enough assistant coaches on staff. Let’s have a look at the table below. Daegu FC only have four coaches whilst Incheon United have five. Gwangju only have four coaches as well, but given the player to coach ratio on each squad, the difference is way bigger. To make it worse, Choi Won-kwon is in charge of the Daegu reserve team as well, so the number of coaches is really only three. Even though André has lived Korea for such a long time, there is still a language barrier preventing a heart to heart with staff. No wonder Mr. Son must have been under so much pressure to figure out a way to overcome the technical staff deficiencies.

Table 1. Comparison of the number of coaches among bottom 3 teams

I imagine Mr. Son wouldn’t have resigned and Daegu would have better results if he had even one more competent coach who could have helped him organize the team. Can the front office really have expected different results after starting the season with so few coaches on staff? Overall, I hope Daegu FC learn a lesson from this incident and do not blame Son and his staff too much for the poor results.