3 Korean Coaches Become Attraction, AFF Cup Called Shin Tae-yong ASEAN World Cup

JAKARTA — The coach of the Indonesian national team Shin Tae Yong called the AFF Cup like the World Cup for countries in the Southeast Asian region (ASEAN).

He conveyed this in the pre-match press conference against Cambodia in the Group A phase of the 2022 AFF Cup at the Bung Karno Main Stadium, Thursday, December 22, 2022.

"This AFF Cup can indeed be called the ASEAN or Southeast Asia World Cup. This competition is very popular", said the 52-year-old coach to the media crew.

This year's AFF Cup attracted a lot of attention. This can be seen from the presence of media from South Korea who cover directly, especially in Indonesia.

Shin said that the media from his country could cover this competition directly because three coaches from there coached the three participating countries.

As is known, apart from Shin Tae Yong, Vietnam is currently being trained by Park Hang-seo and Malaysia is being trained by Kim Pan-gon.

"Indeed, before [the AFF Cup] was not well known in South Korea, but with the presence of three Korean coaches (Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia). So the Korean media paid attention to this", he said.

Indonesia will start its 2022 AFF Cup campaign against Cambodia on Friday. After that, Shin's army will fight the Philippines, Brunei, and Thailand.

The Garuda squad will seek their first title in this biennial competition after being runners-up six times. Most recently in the last edition of 2020 when they lost to Thailand.