Hire national coach if your country seeks World Cup title

In countries relatively weak in soccer such as Korea and Japan, critics call for the “need to introduce foreign coaches," whenever a native coach fails to bring about good performance at World Cup events.

Korea had succeeded in advancing to the semifinals through unwavering national support after introducing Guus Hiddink at the 2002 World Cup Korea-Japan. For the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the Korean national soccer team recruited a successful foreign coach, Dick Advocaat, once again, but failed to advance to the round of 16 best teams. This year, Japan introduced Italian-born coach Alberto Zaccheroni for the World Cup in Brazil, but failed to advance to the round of 16 by recording one draw and two losses.

There is a saying that if your country seeks to win the World Cup, you should have your own native coach to take the leadership. The reason for this is that a foreign coach has never led a country to win a World Cup title thus far. As the coaches of all four teams that advanced to the semifinals at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil are natives of their own countries, the "history of native coach’s winning the title" is set to continue. Coaches namely Luiz Felipe Scolari of the host Brazil, Joachim Löw of Germany, Alejandro Javier of Argentina, and Louis van Gaal of the Netherlands have made it to the semifinals this year.

Scolari, who gave Brazil its fifth title at the 2002 World Cup, is drawing keen attention. He is targeting his second championship for the second time in World Cup history. It is the first challenge after Italian Coach Vittorio Pozzo clinched the title at the 1934 World Cup in Italy and the 1938 World Cup in France. Scolari has garnered the most wins as a Brazilian coach with 14 wins overall at World Cup finals. If he wins the World Cup again without a penalty shootout, he will also tie for 16 wins, the most wins ever (set by Helmut Schön of Germany).