Guus Hiddink

Guus Hiddink

© Paul Blank
Personal information
Full name	Guus Hiddink
Position(s)	Manager
Team information
Current team	Russia

Guus Hiddink (born 8 November 1946 in Varsseveld) is a Dutch football manager. He managed PSV Eindhoven between 2002-2006. Throughout his entire managerial career, he is best recognised for leading South Korea to a 4th place finish in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, managing the Netherlands into the same position in the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, leading Australia to the second round of the 2006 FIFA World Cup—their first appearance in the tournament for 32 years—and some impressive displays with PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Champions League and Eredivisie. Hiddink became the manager of the Russian national team after the 2006 World Cup.

Playing career

Hiddink started out as a player in amateur club SC Varsseveld's youth side. He turned professional, signing on for Dutch club De Graafschap in 1967. He would spend most of his playing career there and is a big fan of the club to this day. He joined PSV Eindhoven in 1970, but after failing to win a permanent position in the team, he rejoined De Graafschap after just one year and remained there until 1976. He also had stints in the North American Soccer League in the United States with Washington Diplomats and San Jose Earthquakes before returning home to sign for NEC Nijmegen. In 1981, he rejoined De Graafschap and retired a year later. He generally played as a midfielder during his playing days.

Managerial career

Early club career

Having honed his coaching skills with De Graafschap as an assistant manager, he took over the managerial role at PSV Eindhoven in 1987 (after also holding the assistant manager position there from 1983 to March 1987). It was at PSV where he led the team to its first ever European Cup triumph in 1988 affirming the Eindhoven club's ranking as one of the three giants of Dutch football, alongside rivals Ajax and Feyenoord. He also won three Eredivisie titles with the club in between 1987 and 1990.

He also had a coaching stint at Turkish club Fenerbahçe in 1990 but was dismissed after one year before joining Spanish giants Valencia. His outspoken nature was demonstrated when during a league game at Valencia's Mestalla stadium, he ordered a racist banner to be removed from one of the stands. His open attacking brand of football appealed to the Valencia team as well as to the rest of the Spanish Primera League.

Dutch National Team

The greatest challenge for Hiddink so far came when he took over as the manager of the Netherlands national football team in 1995 where he took charge of a team of talented individuals continually racked by internal arguments and disputes. Hiddink held a firm grip on the team, for example in the Euro 1996 tournament when Edgar Davids was sent home after an argument with Hiddink. He was able to prevent further internal conflict in the 1998 World Cup where his team played some of the more entertaining football in that tournament. His usual 4-4-2 tactic of deploying wingers backed-up by central midfielders resulted in goals even by defensive midfielders such as Philip Cocu and Edgar Davids. A bitter defeat at the hands of Brazil on penalties in the semi-finals of the World Cup 1998 signalled an end of another era for Hiddink, as he resigned as Dutch national coach soon after.

Return to club football

He became the manager at Spain's Real Madrid in the summer of 1998, replacing Jupp Heynckes, but bad league form saw him get sacked after only half a season in January 1999. Hiddink then took over the reins at Spanish club Real Betis in 2000 for the rest of the season.

He had agreed to become manager of Scottish Premier League club Celtic F.C. in the summer of 2000, but the deal fell through after several board members decided against the appointment.

However, the temptation to manage another World Cup-bound international team proved irresistible for him as he became the head coach of the South Korea national football team on 1 January 2001.

South Korean National Team

Success would not come easily with a team that had appeared in five straight World Cups and had yet to win a single match. Korea was the host team in the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament along with Japan. It was an expectation at the World Cup that the hosts would progress to the second round of the tournament and it was clearly expressed that Hiddink's team was expected to perform to that standard as well.

His first year in charge was not met with favourable reviews from the Korean press, as he was often spotted together with his girlfriend, when some felt he should instead have been taking charge of the team. After a 2-1 loss to the US Gold Cup team in January 2002, he was criticized again for not taking his job seriously. Nevertheless, the team he assembled was a cohesive unit that consequently proved to be one of the fittest teams at the World Cup.

In the World Cup itself, the South Korean team achieved its first ever victory in the final stage (2-0, against Poland), and after a 1-1 draw with the USA and a further 1-0 victory against strongly-fancied Portugal, the South Korean team qualified for the second round, already realising the hopes of the Korean nation. The second round opponents were Italy, who were defeated 2-1 after extra time in a game which recalled North Korea's victory over Italy in the 1966 FIFA World Cup. The South Korea public then began to dream of a semi-final berth, which was attained on defeating Spain on penalties. The South Korean team's run was halted by Germany in the semi-finals. As with the Netherlands team four years before in France, Hiddink led his team into fourth place after a defeat to Turkey in the third place playoff. For the South Korean populace, Hiddink had done a commendable job as football pundits had never expected success near approaching this scale.

Hiddink was given the unofficial title of the most popular individual in the country, and became the first-ever foreigner to be given honorary South Korean citizenship. In addition other rewards soon followed - a private villa in Jeju island; free flights for life with Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines, free taxi rides, and so forth. The World Cup stadium in Gwangju was renamed Guus Hiddink Stadium in his honor shortly after the World Cup. His hometown, where a Guuseum was set up, became a popular stopover for South Koreans visiting the Netherlands.

PSV Eindhoven

Hiddink chose to return to his native country despite being persuaded to extend his contract and has since taken over the coaching duties at PSV Eindhoven in 2003. In the Champions League of 2004/05, he led his team into its first ever appearance in the semi-final of the tournament since it adopted its current format in 1992/93 (PSV won the European Cup, the predecessor to the modern Champions League, in 1988, with Hiddink as coach). PSV lost the semi-final against AC Milan narrowly. In the Champions League season 2005/2006 PSV made it through the group stage, but was eliminated in the first knockout round, having lost 5 of its starting 11 members (Park Ji Sung to Manchester United, Lee Young Pyo to Tottenham Hotspur, Van Bommel to Barcelona, Vogel to AC Milan, and Bouma to Aston Villa). Hiddink did bring another Dutch league title though for PSV in 2006, but lost out to Ajax in the Dutch Cup Final of May 2006.

Australian National Team

On the 22nd of July, 2005 Hiddink became manager of the Australian national team. He announced he would manage both PSV and Australia at the same time, fulfilling a clause in his contract that allows him to coach at both club and national level, but would leave both in mid-2006, after the World Cup finals.

In the play-offs held with Uruguay in Montevideo on 12 November and in Sydney on 16 November 2005, both home teams won 1-0. Australia went on to win 4-2 on penalties – the first time Australia had qualified for the finals in 32 years, and the first time that any team had qualified through winning a penalty shoot-out.

Hiddink was an extremely popular figure in Australia and was referred to affectionately as "Aussie Guus". A telling example of the public affection for him was the Socceroo fans chant of "Goooooooooooos!" during moments of play. Slogans for the Socceroos' World Cup campaign were "No Guus, No Glory", "Guus For P.M" and "In Guus We Trust", as well as the play on words of the famous taunt "Guus your Daddy?". During the World Cup, a Sydney newspaper started a humorous campaign to lure him away from Russia by proposing a national "Guus tax" to pay his wages. More seriously, his reputation was enhanced by his transformation of the national side, with many pundits focusing on the immense improvement to Australia's defence. He is credited with turning a team which conceded many goals under Frank Farina into a solid defensive unit which only conceded one goal away from home to both Uruguay and the Netherlands. Hiddink's assistants at Australia were Dutch legend Johan Neeskens and former Australian International Graham Arnold.

The Socceroos defeated the Japanese team 3-1 during their first game in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals, with Tim Cahill scoring 2 goals (84', 89') and John Aloisi scoring 1 (92') all in the last eight minutes to claim their first World Cup goals and victory ever. An early controversial call by the Egyptian referee that awarded a goal to the Japanese team, despite an apparent foul to Australian goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer, had the Australians playing catch up until the last eight minutes. After scoring the first goal, Cahill was lucky to get away with a potential foul when he tripped Japan's Yuichi Komano who had dribbled into the Australian penalty area. The referee missed the incident, and Cahill then broke to score the second on the counter. FIFA's spokesman for refereeing Anderas Werz said that while Japan's first goal was irregular, Egyptian referee Essam Abdel Fatah should also have given Japan a penalty. Soccernet; Guardian; Aljazeera. The Age;

Following the match against Japan and a subsequent 2-0 loss to Brazil, the Socceroos were left in the position of facing their final match against Croatia with the knowledge that a draw would put them through to the knockout stage of the FIFA world cup for the first time in their history. After a match fraught with controversy and erroneous decisions from the referee, Graham Poll (including an unprecedented three yellow cards given to the same Croatian player, Simunic), they achieved this feat with a 2-2 draw.

In the second round, the Italian national team beat Australia 1-0. Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo, awarded a highly controversial penalty kick to Italy eight seconds from the end of normal time, which was converted by Francesco Totti. This put Australia out of the World Cup, marking the official end of Hiddink's tenure as Australia's national coach. Hiddink expressed interest in managing Australia again after his current contract expires in June 2008.

Russian National Team

On April 10, 2006 Hiddink announced on Dutch television that he would take over the Russia national football team. He signed a 2½-year contract worth US$2.4 million a year plus bonuses, with an option for another two years, on April 14, 2006. His duties for Russia started after World Cup, and the team's first match with Hiddink as coach was a friendly on 16 August 2006 against Latvia. Piet de Visser, a former head scout of Hiddink's club PSV Eindhoven and now a personal assistant to Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, recommended Hiddink to the Chelsea owner.

National Coaching Records

Team	Matches	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals Scored	Goals Against	Goal +/-
the Netherlands	38	22	8	8	81	29	52
South Korea	29	17	6	6	43	25	18
Australia	12	6	3	3	25	10	15
Russia	9	5	3	1	13	5	8
Total	88	50	20	18	162	69	93
% / Averages	100%	57%	22%	21%	1.84/game	0.82/game	1.02/game

* - Updated after Croatia vs Russia, 6th of June

Managerial Positions

1983 - 1990	PSV Eindhoven ('83-87 as assistant)
1990 - 1991	Fenerbahçe
1991 - 1994	Valencia
1995 - 1998	Dutch National Team
1998 - 1999	Real Madrid
2000 - 2000	Real Betis
2001 - 2002	South Korean National Team
2002 - May 2006	PSV Eindhoven
2005 - July 2006	Australian National Team
July 2006 onwards	Russian National Team

Conviction for tax evasion

Hiddink was found guilty of evading €1.4 million in taxes in February 2007. Dutch prosecutors argued that he lied about living Achel, Belgium, from 2002-2003 when he had resided with his girlfriend in Eindhoven. He could have faced 10 months in prison, but got a six-month suspended sentence and the maximum fine of €45,000. The president of the Russian Football Union, Vitaly Mutko, said a conviction would not affect Hiddink's position with the national team. [1][2]

Titles and noteworthy results

As a manager

• 1986/87 - Eredivisie: Champion with PSV Eindhoven.
• 1987/88 - European Cup: Champion with PSV.
• 1987/88 - Eredivisie: Champion with PSV.
• 1987/88 - KNVB Cup: Champion with PSV.
• 1988/89 - Eredivisie: Champion with PSV.
• 1988/89 - KNVB Cup: Champion with PSV.
• 1989/90 - KNVB Cup: Champion with PSV.
• 1998 - Intercontinental Cup (football): Champion with Real Madrid.
• 1998 - 1998 FIFA World Cup: Fourth place with the Netherlands.
• 2002 - 2002 FIFA World Cup: Fourth place with South Korea.
• 2002/03 - Eredivisie: Champion with PSV.
• 2004/05 - Eredivisie: Champion with PSV.
• 2004/05 - KNVB Cup: Champion with PSV.
• 2005/06 - Eredivisie: Champion with PSV.
• 2006 - 2006 FIFA World Cup: Second round with Australia.

Trivia

• Guus speaks Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish. He also speaks basic Italian and is learning Russian

• On occasion of the 50th anniversary of De Graafschap in 2004, Hiddink was elected superboer (Eng: Super Farmer, the nickname of the club) of the century.

External links

• Russia (USSR) National Football Team
• Guus Hiddink Profile at english.psv.nl
• Guus Hiddink Foundation
• "A Beautiful Mind" (Sydney Morning Herald article on Guus Hiddink)