The Korean Football Association (KFA) has appointed Mr. Roberto Moreno as interim coach of the Korean national team, with a contract lasting until November 27, 2026. The Spanish strategist will take over the position replacing Hong Myung-bo, who resigned after the failure at the 2026 World Cup.
Roberto Moreno and 5 Spanish assistants will lead the South Korean national team in 6 friendly matches, including 4 matches that have been identified as matches against Ecuador (September 24), Uruguay (September 28), Venezuela (October 2), Uzbekistan (October 6), in addition to 2 other matches in November 2026.
If they perform well in these 6 matches, Roberto Moreno has the opportunity to become the official coach of the Korean national team, leading the kimchi team to compete in the 2027 Asian Cup. This is a tournament where the Korean national team is in the same group as the Vietnamese national team, Yemen and UAE.
Roberto Moreno was born in 1977, oriented to become a coach early. After having a period as a scout for Barcelona, Moreno worked as an assistant to coach Luis Enrique, starting from AS Roma (Italy) in 2011, to Celta Vigo (2013–2014), Barcelona (2014–2017) and the Spanish national team (2018–2019).
Notably, he temporarily led the team for eight months when coach Enrique resigned in Spain in 2019 to take care of his daughter fighting bone cancer. Later, Luis Enrique removed Moreno from the coaching staff, arguing that he was unloyal and overly ambitious.
Later, Moreno moved to coach AS Monaco (France, 2019–2020), Granada (Spain, 2021–2022), and PEC Sochi (Russia, 2023–2025). However, he did not achieve many impressive achievements. Last year, he resigned as Sochi coach after poor performance, alongside rumors of abusing ChatGPT in his work.
The Korean Football Association (KFA) has conducted a public recruitment process to select an interim head coach for six friendly matches taking place from September to November 2026. After reviewing the applications, the KFA narrowed the list to 5 candidates for interviews, including three Spaniards, including: Moreno, Dominech Torrent (who was an assistant coach under Pep Guardiola for more than 10 years), and Jesús Casas (former coach of the Iraqi national team).
Online interviews were conducted with members of the National Team Capacity Building Committee (under KFA) and Chairman Hyun Young-min flew to Europe to conduct direct interviews and finally chose Moreno.
According to Korean media, Mr. Moreno was chosen because he "has a deep understanding of Korean football and offers many different tactical options". The KFA itself also highly hopes that the Spanish strategist and his associates will play an important role in changing the atmosphere of the Korean national team and improving the team's performance.
