New QPR coach Park was 'guard dog' who halted Pirlo and could have stopped Messi

Park is now coaching QPR's under-16s as part of his Uefa B licence alongside his role as an advisor at K League 1 club Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors.

Sandwiched between two spells at PSV Eindhoven, Park was a Premier League regular from 2005 to 2013 with United and Rangers, winning trophy after trophy with the former.

A huge part of Ferguson's later successes at Old Trafford, Park picked up four league titles and a Champions League in red as he became a cult icon.

Park's reading of the game and combative nature made him a man-marking god, with Ferguson often deploying him to shadow the opponent's best player.

One of the most famous occasions came in 2010 when Park was deployed on the toes of AC Milan's Andrea Pirlo, and left the Italian livid as he was played out of the game in a 3-2 San Siro win for United.

"Even Sir Alex Ferguson, the purple-nosed manager who turned Manchester United into a fearsome battleship, couldn't resist the temptation," Pirlo later said in his autobiography.

"He's a man without blemish, but he ruined that purity just for a moment when it came to me. A fleeting shabbiness came over the legend that night.

"At Milan, he unleashed Park Ji-sung to shadow me. He rushed about at the speed of an electron. He'd fling himself at me, his hands all over my back, trying to intimidate me. He'd look at the ball and not know what it was for.

"They'd programmed him to stop me. His devotion to the task was almost touching. Even though he was a famous player, he consented to being used as a guard dog."

Pirlo was a fearsome competitor at the time, running games from deep in midfield, but if his comments weren't enough of a compliment to Park, Ferguson followed them up.

United were famously played off the park at Wembley by Barcelona in the 2011 Champions League final, with Ferguson calling Pep Guardiola's side "the best team I've faced".

However he later admitted that if he'd used Park properly, the 3-1 defeat could have been very different.

"I should have changed at half-time and put Ji-sung Park on Messi," he later said to Gary Neville.

"That was a mistake. I was going to do it at half-time, then I said, 'Well, we just equalised before half-time, they may see the game differently, we may grow into the game better.'

"We were actually quite good in the last 10 minutes of that half. We came into it and we could have been in front.

"But if I'd played Ji-sung Park against Messi, I think we'd have beat them. I really do."

The most decorated player in the history of Asian football and one with a supreme understanding of the game, there will certainly be belief among Ferguson and others that Park could soon become a top level coach.