(Xinhua) – K League One side Jeonbuk Hyundai is set to appoint Dan Petrescu (55), a former Premier League legend who played alongside technical advisor Roberto Di Matteo (53), as its new head coach.
“We have decided on Petrescu as the new coach and have been negotiating with him,” a source from the soccer world told Xports News on the 30th, adding, “We are currently working on details such as issuing a work visa.”
Jeonbuk stepped down as head coach Kim Sang-sik voluntarily resigned on Nov. 4 after the club’s poor performance at the start of the 2023 season. Head coach Kim Doo-hyun has since taken over as acting head coach.
Jeonbuk played the season under Kim, while technical director Park Ji-sung continued to work on recruiting foreign coaches from Europe.
While searching for a new coach, Jeonbuk negotiated with Pertercu, formerly the head coach of CFR Cluj in the Romanian first division, to become the new head coach. An announcement is expected as soon as the work visa process is finalized.
Petrescu is a Romanian native who played as a fullback for the Romanian national team from 1989 to 2000. He is a national legend with 95 caps.
His professional career began with Steaua Bucharest, followed by Poggia and Genoa (both in Italy) before playing for Sheffield United, Chelsea, Bradford, 토토사이트 and Southampton (all in England). He made 215 appearances for Chelsea. In 2002, he returned to his home league, Nacional, and retired a year later.
Petrescu is related to Jeonbuk’s technical advisor Roberto Di Matteo. The two joined Chelsea in 1996 and worked together until Petrescu moved to Bradford in 2000.
With Chelsea, they won one FA Cup (1996/97), one League Cup, one UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup (1997/98) and a UEFA Super Cup (1998).
Petrescu has coached Krasnodar, Dynamo Moscow (Russia) and Al Arabi (Qatar), and is no stranger to Asia, having coached Jiangsu Suning in 2015 and Guizhou in 2018.
A three-time coach of Cluj, Petrescu has won the Romanian league five times and the Chinese Super League title with Jiangsu in 2015.