Choi Kang-hee named new head coach for national football team

The Korea Football Association (KFA) selected the two-time K-League champion coach after the meeting of its technical committee. Choi takes over a struggling squad facing a must-win game in just two months.

In the ongoing third round, South Korea leads Group B with 10 points, tied with Lebanon in points but ahead in the goal differential tiebreaker. Kuwait is in third with eight points and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has zero. The top two nations from each of five groups will reach the fourth and the final qualification phase.

Though it is tops in the group, South Korea will still be eliminated if it loses to Kuwait and if Lebanon defeats or draws the UAE in their final group contests in February.

South Korea is seeking its eighth straight World Cup appearance and ninth overall.

Choi guided the Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors to the K-League championships in 2009 and 2011 and won the annual Coach of the Year awards in those two years. Under Choi's watch, the team won the

2006 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League, the region's top club competition, and finished runner-up at this year's Champions League.

With Choi employing offense-first strategies, Jeonbuk led the K-League this year with 67 goals in 30 regular season contests. He will be counted on to turn things around for South Korea offensively.

In five group matches in the ongoing round, South Korea has netted 12 goals, but half of them came in one game, its 6-0 win over Lebanon in September. It has since had trouble converting chances around the net and has lacked flair or flow on the offensive end.

The KFA had earlier said it would actively consider employing a foreign national to lead the national team.

After Dutchman Guus Hiddink led South Korea to the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup -- the country's best finish ever -- four foreign coaches have had mixed results and never came close to duplicating Hiddink's success.

The last foreigner to coach South Korea was Pim Verbeek from the Netherlands. Since he resigned in August 2007, two South Koreans, Huh Jung-moo and Cho Kwang-rae, had led the national team.