Kim Pan-gon

Kim Pan-gon (Korean: 김판곤; Hanja: 金判坤, born 1 May 1969) is a South Korean football manager and former player who played as a winger. He is the current manager of the Malaysia national football team.

Early life

Kim was born into a family of peasants in Jinju, a small town in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. He was the youngest of five children and his family used to set up stalls to sell food 5 kilometers outside of Jinju every Friday. Kim loved football, but the junior high school he attended did not have a team of its own. In order to play football in high school, he enrolled in Changshin High School in Masan, at an hour's drive from his hometown, and Honam University, a famous non-traditional football school.

Club career

While in university, Kim attracted the attention of Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i manager Cha Bum-kun and turned pro with Ulsan Hyundai in 1992. Kim failed to impress, however, and had to undergo seven surgeries due to a shin injury in his third year. He transferred to another K League club Jeonbuk Hyundai Dinos in 1997, but could not overcome the effects of his injury and retired that year.

Kim became a high school coach for a while but left for Hong Kong to make a comeback. In 2000, he joined Instant-Dict (renamed Double Flower the next year) in the Hong Kong First Division League. He contributed to a Hong Kong FA Cup title and later moved to Buler Rangers in 2002 to serve as a player-coach for two years.

Managerial career

Busan IPark

Kim returned to South Korea in 2004 and obtained the AFC Professional Football Coaching Diploma, Asia's highest-level coaching license. At that time, only five other South Koreans held the same qualification. In 2005, he became Busan IPark's assistant coach under manager Ian Porterfield.

During four years at Busan, Kim helped his team as caretaker manager whenever they had urgent situations. He won Busan's first victory of the 2006 season in his second match as Busan's manager on 8 April 2006 after predecessor Porterfield failed to get a victory in 21 consecutive matches, and achieved four consecutive victories in that month. This sudden change was called the "Pan-gon's Magic" by Korean media. He returned as the assistant coach when André Egli became a replacement for Porterfield in July. However, Egli abruptly announced his resignation while attending field training in the United States in June 2007, and Kim once again managed Busan as caretaker manager for the remainder of the season. Busan quickly recruited Park Sung-hwa as their new manager in July, but Park left for the South Korean Olympic team after just 17 days.

South China and Hong Kong

Kim became the manager of Hong Kong First Division League club South China in November 2008. Under Kim, South China won the 2009 Lunar New Year Cup after defeating league all-star team and Sparta Prague. After contributing to South China's league title in the 2008–09 season, he started to manage Hong Kong national teams at the same time. Kim and South China also won 2–0 over Tottenham Hotspur in a pre-season friendly, and advanced to the semi-finals in the 2009 AFC Cup. He finished his best year by leading Hong Kong national under-23 team to an East Asian Games title.

On 11 December 2002, after a 3–4 defeat to Kitchee, Kim Pan-gon resigned from the post of South China team manager, citing health reasons that required him to recuperate back in South Korea.

Gyeongnam FC

On 26 November 2010, Kim was transferred position from manager to physical fitness consultant of South China, and he will return to South Korea later to serve as a tactical consultant for K League side Gyeongnam FC. Kim told the media that due to minor heart and liver problems, it is not suitable for him to be the manager of South China. It is convenient to stay in South Korea for medical treatment. Earlier, he was invited by Gyeongnam to be the manager, but Kim only agreed to serve as a tactical consultant, and his family would continue to stay in Hong Kong. However, due to the health of his wife living in Hong Kong, he returned to Hong Kong after one season.

Return to Hong Kong

Kim suddenly appeared in Hong Kong on 5 October 2011, claiming to the media that his health has recovered and he has applied last week to the Hong Kong Football Association (HKFA) to be the new Hong Kong national team coach. He also confirmed that his contract with Gyeongnam FC still has one year to run, but he will be released if he is appointed by the HKFA.

Kim was appointed as National Academy coach by the HKFA on 22 December 2011. He was wholly responsible for the identification, development and coaching of all players aged 18 and below. He took up the position of acting manager of Hong Kong national football team in November 2012 following the resignation of former manager Ernie Merrick. Afterwards, the HKFA confirmed Kim as the permanent manager of the Hong Kong national football team on 28 May 2013. He signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with the HKFA.

According to Kim, most of the Hong Kongese players do not have an environment where they can comfortably focus on football, where most of the players are semi-professionals. Kim took this into consideration and used the short time as efficiently as possible. The focus was on physical strength and organization. Hong Kong players worked together through strengthening training for about two to three days a week. Kim led the Hong Kong under-23 team to the knockout stage of the 2014 Asian Games after earning 7 points in the group stage, but they were eliminated by eventual champions South Korea in the round of 16. In December 2015, HKFA announced that they will renew Kim's contract until June 2018. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, Hong Kong's two 0–0 draws with China not only attracted new fans to support the Hong Kong team but also increased Kim's popularity.

However, Kim was gradually criticised by failing to qualify for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and recruiting too many foreign players. During the match against North Korea, some fans held up the "Kim Out" slogan and asked Kim to resign due to bad performances in the Asian Cup qualification. "Kim Out" slogans flooded social media as well, criticising Kim's conservative tactics and failure to play offensive football, making it difficult for Hong Kong to easily win. Hong Kong fans also criticised that after Kim took the office, the number of naturalised players in the team increased greatly, making it difficult for local youth to find opportunities to fight for places in the starting lineup. Some naturalised players of the team were fairly old, such as centre-back Festus Baise from Nigeria and midfielder Itaparica from Brazil, who were both well over 37 years old at the time. Kim replied to the fans regarding the influx of naturalised player on an interview in December 2019, saying "Hong Kong is an international city, everyone wants to be a Hong Konger and everyone wants to fight for the citizens of Hong Kong. Why aren't they [naturalised players] welcomed?".

In December 2017, Kim resigned as Hong Kong coach to become technical director of the Korean Football Association.

Korea Football Association

On 26 December 2017, Kim was appointed Korea Football Association (KFA)'s vice president and head of the reinforcement committee. His long-term plan was to change the future of the nation's football like when he managed the Hong Kong national team. He put emphasis on sports science and made football science team in the KFA to approach to players' treatment, recovery and weight training scientifically. After setting as the direction "proactive football", he hired Paulo Bento as national team manager and explained his hiring process to the media.

Malaysia

On 21 January 2022, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) named Kim the new national team coach. He resigned as technical director of the Korean Football Association and flew to Malaysia in mid-February that year with four staff: analysis and fitness officers, assistant coaches and technical trainers. Kim signed a two-year contract expiring in 2024 that would be extended if FAM was satisfied with the performance of the national squad.

On 15 June 2022, the Malayan Tigers under Kim qualified for the AFC Asian Cup for the first time in 42 years.

Before the opening of the 2022 AFF Championship, Kim selected 41 players for the preliminary squad for the competition, but Tunku Ismail Idris, the crown prince of Johor and the owner of Malaysian champions Johor Darul Ta'zim, refused to release his key players. The competition was not an essential tournament approved by FIFA, and clubs were not required to send players. So Kim called up new players including naturalised Malaysians, and focused on seeing if they were worthy of being on the team. His team advanced to the semifinals as group runner-up after winning three games in Group B, where it competed with Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore and Laos. Malaysia advanced to the semifinals and won the first leg, 1–0, over the defending champion Thailand, but fell in the second, 3–0.

Personal life

Kim obtained Hong Kong permanent residency after living there for seven years. His wife, son and daughter live in Hong Kong.

Managerial statistics

As of match played 26 March 2024

Honours

Player

Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i

• K League 1: 1996
• Korean League Cup: 1995

Instant-Dict

• Hong Kong FA Cup: 2000–01

Buler Rangers

• Hong Kong FA Cup runner-up: 2002–03

Individual

• Hong Kong FA Top Footballers: 2002–03

Manager

South China

• Hong Kong First Division League: 2008–09, 2009–10
• Hong Kong Senior Challenge Shield: 2009–10

Hong Kong U23

• East Asian Games: 2009

Individual

• Hong Kong FA Coach of the Year: 2010

References

External links

• Kim Pan-gon – K League stats at kleague.com (in Korean)
• Kim Pan-gon's interview with Football Asia SC (video on YouTube)