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Cunning Hiddink still the perfect hired hand
The much-travelled Russia coach has earnt respect wherever he has worked
- and his winning formula seems as powerful as ever
Ian Hawkey
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Photo: Sport
Express Daily
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MARCELLO LIPPI, the coach of Italy's world champions, once
drew attention to Guus Hiddink's exceptional 'cunning', which should be
taken as a compliment from a man recognising a quality of his own. Mark
Viduka reckons Hiddink is a 'tactical genius'. Koreans on holiday in Holland
have made pilgrimages to the village of Varsseveld, where Hiddink was
born. But it has not all been praise. Edgar Davids said he had his 'head
up the white arses' of senior Dutch players. At Real Madrid, they mutter
that in his time there he 'lost the dressing room'.
Hiddink is 60, and has been around football's block and down some unusual
alleys: Holland, Spain, Turkey, the United States, South Korea, Australia,
and now Russia. He has won the European Cup with PSV Eindhoven, who needed
to punch above their weight and keep their nerve to seal it on penalties.
He was a young, relatively untried manager in those days, a sort of Mourinho
of the time. As a more worldly coach, he has taken different teams to
two World Cup semi-finals, and another to the last 16.
People in football tend to like Hiddink ? even he and Davids made up ?
for his affable, unamplified style. If he wants it, he will be offered
jobs everywhere for the next 10 years at least.
Russia want him for some of those and the federation has opened negotiations
to extend his contract to 2010, impressed with the momentum he has gathered
in the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. Should he take Russia to the later
stages of a major finals within the next three summers, he will become
indisputably the specialist hired, foreign hand you would want to take
your country to World Cups. He may end up being more respected for that
than he was as a distinguished club manager with a long, illustrious CV
that includes Real Madrid, Valencia and PSV.
His playing career never touched those heights, though he had solid years
among middle-ranking Dutch clubs, the last of which, De Graafschap, he
took over as coach, his boots discarded after a third stint there, with
spells in the North American Soccer League in between. Two years into
the profession, he joined PSV, first as an assistant, then as a chief
on the brink of extraordinary success: three Dutch titles on the trot
and the 1988 European Cup victory over Benfica. He took a post at the
Turkish club Fenerbahce in 1990, which lasted only a year, and accepted
Valencia's offer to work in Spain, where he is recalled for having brought
a pleasing style, for a disaster of a Uefa Cup night ? 7-0 against Karlsruhe
? and for an incident of bravery when he confronted fans waving a Nazi
flag.
He ordered his team not to kick off until it had been removed.
With Holland, he made another point of principle, ordering Davids to go
home when the midfielder had made his controversial observations to Dutch
radio. It was Euro 96. Hiddink's Holland would underachieve, losing 4-1
to England at Wembley and reaching only the quarter-finals, where they
lost on penalties to France. The coach kept his job and guided Holland
to the 1998 World Cup semi-final, a defeat by Brazil on penalties.
Madrid called him at this point, but that marriage would be short: six
months. He had a further brief appointment in Spain, at Real Betis, and
having been tempted by the Celtic job, he then took the career fork that
would make him the famous alchemist of international football's baser
metals. He accepted the job as manager of South Korea 18 months before
they co-hosted the World Cup and a Korean team with startling stamina,
sharp organisation and a little luck made it to the last four. Portugal,
Italy and Spain had been eliminated en route. The state made Hiddink an
honorary Korean citizen.
Four more successful years with PSV followed, the last of which he job-shared
with coaching Australia. The Socceroos reached the 2006 World Cup finals,
where Hiddink took them to within eight seconds of an extra-time joust
with Italy for a place in the quarter-finals.
The Australians wanted him to stay. The Russia offer would be sufficiently
generous not to require a job-share. Hiddink has so far been good value
for the Russians, changed their approach and, by most accounts, their
individual swagger. He apparently encourages the players to swear more,
raise their voices, show their fire, detecting something true in the stereotype
of the icy, withdrawn Russian athlete that needed correcting. Students
of stereotypes may in turn wonder if his previous job, working with a
group of Australian sportsmen, persuaded him that matches may indeed be
won and lost on the basis of how forcefully you curse and sledge.
Times
Online, September 9, 2007
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