Silent Lonesome Man

When Ricardo "El Tigre" Gareca first appointed as coach of the Peru national football team, the Peruvians had just entered their 33rd years without a World Cup. The dissatisfaction was high among the national team because they were regarded by their own countrymen as nothing but a bunch of pop stars with no discipline and full of scandals. It was real. And no one imagined just a few years, a villain would turn into a hero. Not so easy Back in 2010, the Uruguayan Armenian manager Sergio Markarián was appointed as coach of Peru following the country disastrous campaign in the 2010 World Cup qualification, where Peru finished bottom with only three victories, despite not losing at home to Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. In fact, the national team of Peru was so bad for some points, the media in the country named this team "Los hijos de Burga" (sons of Burga), to refer to Manuel Burga Seoane, President of the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) from 2002 to 2014. The ange...

When Park Hang-seo received a call from Lee Dong-jun in an apartment in Changwon telling that he would be appointed as coach of Vietnam and should schedule a trip to fly from his homeland to the Southeast Asian country, few could imagine his fate would change forever within only a year. He was ignored and struggled with a third-tier Changwon FC when he terminated his contract with the club and moved south. Vietnam wasn't better either, it struggled to gain a difficult away win over Cambodia to move second behind Jordan in the attempt to qualify for 2019 AFC Asian Cup. It shows how much has changed. A man who had nothing to offer at the first place became a widely acknowledged national celebrity. Many Korean nationals were surprised to hear the news, and many were happy. Yet, Park Hang-seo is just one of the string of strange connection that was created by fate, destiny and history. 2002's Band of Brothers It was June 142, 2002, when Park Hang-seo jointly celebrated with the man...