The Big Interview: Colin Bell

The South Korea head coach was born in Leicester but spent much of his career in Germany. A former Champions League winner, he's now preparing his side for a World Cup this summer...

Stories like this take time, effort and money resources to create. Please consider a paid monthly or annual subscriptions to gain access to all our interviews, in-depth features, profiles and analysis.

---

Colin Bell in his days as 1. FFC Frankfurt head coach in Germany

Leicester-born Colin Bell has had an eclectic career so far. The Englishman has spent only 20 years of his life in England itself, with his career in his homeland spanning just two and a half years, in two separate spells, a quarter of a century apart.

After two years in the Foxes’ academy, Bell moved to Germany to play professionally and has predominantly remained there ever since, coaching in both the men’s and women’s game where he won the Champions League in the latter with 1. FFC Frankfurt in 2014.

Now though he has left Europe for Asia and the Korea Republic national team, who he has coached since just over the last World Cup in 2019, and on Thursday he returns to manage a side on home turf for the first time in over two decades.

Bell’s side are currently out of season, bar a handful who play their football in Europe, so their training camp started on 30^th January back home where the team got together for 10 days before flying to England, to try and be in the best shape possible to face three European sides currently all in-season.

The 61-year-old admits it’s a “big disadvantage”, but goes on to explain they decided to accept the invite to the Arnold Clark Cup because it offers them key preparation and exposure to top European nations ahead of this summer’s World Cup.

“England are currently the best team in the world,” says Bell. “That will expose every mistake we make or every weakness we have in the way we play. We’re coming over to learn European football. I know what it’s like, some of the girls do, but the rest need to witness it first-hand.

“It was a question of not being afraid to take this challenge on. We could have made it easier for ourselves and stay out of the way and get some good results - although I’ve never given a result up before we played it - but it’s good preparation. We know we’re up against it, but to really underline where we need to improve and for the players to see where Europe is at.

“Technically, we don’t have any problems, we don’t need to hind behind any of these three nations technically, but physicality and fitness levels we can learn a lot. The three games in 10 days will help with World Cup preparation too, how we recover quickly between games and preparing ourselves for that last game against Germany, which will be tough. And to prove to ourselves that if we follow our principles and keep ourselves well organised we are capable of a result against every team and that’s my main aim first and foremost.”

After England, Bell’s side will be the next highest ranked nation at the tournament this week, coming in 15^th ahead of Italy in 17^th and Belgium in 20^th.

And they will be no pushovers either, having drawn 0-0 with both the USA and Canada in the past 18 months. They only lost the Asia Cup final last year 3-2 to China through a 93^rd minute goal and pushed Japan all the way, ending the year with three consecutive 1-0 wins against Jamaica and twice against New Zealand.

“We’ve definitely made good steps,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned, we should be Asian champions, we should have beaten China in the final last year. We were the better team but we blew it, lost our way a little bit and were punished.

“In July, we lost 2-1 to Japan to a defensive error but it was the first time we’d dominated possession against Japan. We had 16 shots to their four, but they scored two, that’s a quality we need to find, but I was pleased with how we dominated both teams.

“From possession, goal scoring chances and just the way we performed in general, we’ve definitely made leaps. We had two really good games against New Zealand and played some of the best football since I’ve been in charge. We drew with Canada 0-0, USA 0-0, but we need to take it to the next level and start winning these matches. We still have a way to go before taking it to a World Cup.”