Reporter Ahn Hong-seok = Coach Carlos Queiroz (70), who broke up with the Iranian national soccer team, has risen to the command tower of the Qatar national team.
The Qatar Football Association (QFA) announced on the 7th that it had appointed Queiroz as its manager. His contract is until the end of the 2026 World Cup in North and Central America.
The QFA explained the reason for the appointment, saying, “Coach Queiroz is familiar with Asian football and has built a rich career in Asia.”
Portuguese coach Queiroz was recognized for his ability while working as the head coach of Manchester United (England) under coach Alex Ferguson in the early and mid-2000s, and since the late 2000s, he has coached several national teams.
In particular, he coached the Iranian national team on two occasions, from 2011 to 2019 and 2022, and produced good results, such as reaching the World Cup final stage three times in a row.
Coach Queiroz, who had previously led the Portuguese national team to the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, is expected to become the coach to step on the World Cup final stage for the fifth time in a row if Qatar advances to the World Cup finals in North and Central America this time.
Qatar, which was eliminated from the group stage after losing all three matches in last year’s World Cup held in its home country, will have a fresh start under coach Queiros, an ‘Asian football expert’.
The QFA tasted a miserable failure at the last World Cup despite entrusting the team’s leadership to Felix Sanchez, who was active as a youth leader at FC Barcelona (Spain), naturalizing foreign players and training for a long-term training camp. 먹튀검증
It seems that Queiroz, who knows Asian football and the characteristics of players well and has a lot of experience in the World Cup finals, has decided that he is the right person to lead the national team to success in the next World Cup.
The ‘tough relationship’ between coach Queiros and Korean football is also expected to continue.
This is because the chances of the two teams facing each other in the Asian Cup in Qatar next year or the World Cup qualifiers in North and Central America are not small.
Coach Queiros was highly criticized by Korean fans for his unsportsmanlike behavior of throwing a fist potato at a Korean bench during the Asian final qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil held in Korea.
Iran and Korea were also tied in a group in the final World Cup qualifiers in Qatar, and coach Queiroz had a ‘priestly confrontation’ with Paulo Bento, the coach of the Korean national team at the time, whom he met as a coach and player in the Portuguese national team in the past.
Queiros’ image in the Korean football world is generally negative, but his ability is recognized, so in the process of selecting a new national team coach in 2018, coach Queiros was mentioned as a candidate.