"We gave high marks to his enthusiasm, proactive attitude and sincerity about the South Korean national team job."
Hyun Young-min, chairman of the Korea Football Association's technical committee, said this on the 4th in explaining the selection of Roberto Moreno of Spain as interim head coach of the South Korean national football team, speaking on the association's official YouTube channel.
"Moreno has the valuable experience of having led both a world-class elite club and a national team at a young age," the chairman said. "He is a coach with the command to manage star players, data-based match analysis befitting a former performance analyst, and the ability to deploy a wide range of tactics."
Born in 1977, Moreno served as assistant coach at Barcelona in Spain's LaLiga from 2014 to 2017, and from 2018 spent two years as assistant coach and then head coach of the Spanish national team. He later worked at AS Monaco in France and Granada in Spain, and most recently led PFC Sochi of Russia in the 2024-2025 season.
What the association rated most highly was Moreno's thorough preparation and passion. "He surprised the interviewers by accurately grasping not only the positional characteristics of the national team players but also the key resources in the K League and the unusual operating structure of Gimcheon Sangmu, the military team," the chairman said. "He had a strong eagerness to start work as soon as the contract was signed." He added that Moreno "also showed a passion to lift the national team to a higher level, with his entire staff living in South Korea."
Moreno, meanwhile, said on his own website that day that he felt "greatly honored and at the same time a heavy sense of responsibility" at taking charge of the South Korean national team, adding, "I have known and respected Korean football for a long time, and now it is my turn to devote myself to Korean football." He continued: "I will promise effort, honesty and respect rather than results. The only thing we have to say, we will show on the pitch."
The association earlier held a board meeting on the 1st of this month at Korea Football Park in Cheonan, Chungnam, and approved the appointment of Moreno as interim national team coach. Moreno, the first coach selected through an open recruitment process, will oversee six A matches through November, and depending on results will lead the team through the 2027 Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup in January next year.
Moreno is expected to arrive in South Korea soon and announce detailed plans for running the team at an official news conference.
