Look at these quote in particular:
Soccerphile: What did you know of Korea and Korean football before you came here?
Ian Porterfield: The Far East was an area that I hadn't been to too much. My aim was to come to Korea for the World Cup with Trinidad and Tobago. The Trinidad and Tobago National Team did so well for such a small country of 1.3 million. We went through all the qualifying games, then went through the 1st round, 2nd round, all the individual games until the last, last bit. We were just a little bit short and missed the boat. It'd always been a dream that I'd had and I'd missed out going to the World Cup by one point with Zambia and I just missed out again with Trinidad and Tobago to come to Korea and I haven't been disappointed.
Well we were severely beaten and thrown out to last place in the final 6 and we played well our last 2 games a 1-0 win at Honduras and a 0-0 draw at home to the US thanks to THE BEST COACH we could EVER HAVE - Rene Simoes!! (Of course we could not afford to pay him sadly). He failed in the Hex. Don't know what he means above, but yes in the semi-final stage we were great!
Soccerphile: But it's a big gamble to leave school at 16 to concentrate on football in Korea.
Ian Porterfield: That's right but why? Sixty years ago, Korea was as underdeveloped as most African countries. Argue? It's true. Now, it's one of the most forward-looking economies in the world. Education is very important but when you analyze the way football goes in this part of the world-it doesn't work.
Kids are studying all hours of the day here - morning, noon and night. Other countries have education as well as it can be done. Football and education can go together. The KFA should look at, a perfect example. Now France is developing more players than England, Spain etc. The national team won the World Cup and the Euro Championships with a population not much bigger than Korea. It can be done and I tried to encourage this when I was involved in African football. In fact before I left Trinidad and Tobago, I wanted to lay a structure to develop football straight through and it would have worked.
A structure hmmm?? Of course Rene Simoes had a structure (Germany 2006 plan) but lets not talk about our failure to keep him.
Soccerphile: Would you be interested in the Korean National job?
Ian Porterfield: I love my job at Busan, I want to make a go of this club. I loved being a National coach and had great satisfaction from taking Zambia to 18th in the world from sixty something. I took Trinidad and Tobago from sixty something to 24th/25th. I am very proud of my achievements. The future - who knows? What will be, will be. I am ambitious, my life is football, my love is football. I am committed to Busan I'cons but tomorrow's another day.
There may be a few more Korean tomorrows as there have been suggestions of a contract extension. For enthusiasm alone, the manager of Busan deserves some success and who knows? He could achieve his dream at managing in the World Cup with Korea.
Well he is in fact true, on the day we played the USA in the US in June 2001, we were ranked I think 24th in the world by FIFA. Losing 2-0 by 2 dotish give away goals, 1 by Marvin Andrews and I cyah remember the other.
I am back!! Hyperhot J aka Jason.
