"There's no recipe, there's no secret, there's no
magic"
SEOUL (AFP) - Guus Hiddink, christened the "wizard"
by grateful Russian media, said Tuesday there was no magic to his giant-killing
exploits as a coach in big international tournaments.
"There's no recipe, there's no secret, there's no magic," he
told journalists during a visit to South Korea, the team he took to the
2002 World Cup semi-finals against all the odds.
"What we emphasised was to expose (ourselves), as a team, as players,
to play fully committed and fully hard," the 62-year-old said of
his latest team Russia, which he led to the Euro 2008 semi-finals last
month.
The country had not advanced to the knockout stage of a major competition
in 20 years.
The Dutchman -- a hero in South Korea -- also took Australia to the second
round of the World Cup two years ago.
Hiddink arrived Monday to attend this week's opening of a football pitch
named after him for disabled children in the southeastern port city of
Pohang.
"You cannot guarantee 100 percent winning, but what we guaranteed
to the public is that we would play in a very attractive style,"
he said of Russia's Euro 2008 performance.
"You must be very realistic," he said, sitting at a lunch next
to current South Korean national coach Huh Jung-Moo. "Let's not forget
realistically where Russia is, where Korea is."
South Korea, seeking their seventh ticket to the World Cup, have made
it to the final regional qualifying round starting in September. But their
performance has been flawed in recent qualifiers.
"You must put the aims and targets, so everyone knows what to do
within a team," said Hiddink, quoted by Yonhap news agency.
"(A team) cannot always be top, top, top. But when players play with
their heart, there's no big problem."
