News: Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors to Appoint José Morais as Manager From Next Season

Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors have announced today that they have hired Portuguese manager José Morais to takeover as manager of the team from the start of next year. The move comes after the announcement in October that long-serving manager Choi Kang-hee would head to China upon completion of this campaign.
(Image via Hyundai-MotorsFC.com)

José Morais comes to Jeonbuk with a variety of coaching and managerial ventures, with the North Jeolla club representing his first foray into East Asian football over the span of his nineteen-year coaching career.

Since moving from a playing role into coaching in 1999, Morais has held 20 different positions at 19 different clubs. Undoubtedly the highlights will have been working as assistant manager under the tutelage of Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan, Real Madrid and then Chelsea, after previously working with him back at Benfica. His association with such a high profile manager will have undoubtedly been well-noted during the scouting process and perhaps served as the convincing factor in his eventual appointment.

Jeonbuk Hyundai general manager on Jose Morais "His strategic acumen and experience in winning the European championship will inspire and motivate our players" 🤔🤔 #kleague

— Korea Football News (@KORFootballNews) November 29, 2018

His managerial career has been far less successful, however. While his positions at Espérance (Tunisia) and Al-Shabab (Saudia Arabia) in 2008 and 2014 did provide him with a 74% and 71% win ratio respectively, he was only at the helm for 19 games at the former and seven matches at the latter.

His more recent forays have also been worrying. His 28 game spell in charge of Antalyaspor (Turkey) during 2016 bore just nine wins. He would move on later that year to AEK Athens (Greece) for fourteen matches, winning three.

This year, Morais has already held two managerial positions. At the beginning of 2018 he was appointed manager of then English Championship side Barnsley and proceeded to pick up three wins in a fifteen game stint, damning them to relegation. The manager had looked to stave off his fate by insisting relegation would not be a failure for the club, yet the board disagreed and parted ways with him once Barnsley were condemned to the English third tier.

Morais took over at Ukranian side Karpaty Lviv in August 2018, manning the helm for 11 games and winning four, before choosing to resign yesterday and accepting the Jeonbuk position.

Jose Morais will look to fill the shoes of the most successful manager in K League history Choi Kang-hee, who will be at the helm for his final match this weekend against Gyeongnam FC before departing for China.