Guus Hiddink (Dutch pronunciation:[ˈɣysˈɦɪdɪŋk]ⓘ; born 8 November 1946) is a Dutch former football manager and professional player. He enjoyed a long career playing as amidfielder in his native Netherlands. After retiring as a player in 1982, Hiddink went into management, leading clubs and countries from across the globe to achieve various titles and feats. WithPSV Eindhoven he won theEuropean Champion Clubs' Cup, the predecessor of the UEFA Champions League. WithReal Madrid he won theIntercontinental Cup.
Hiddink was born inVarsseveld[1] and started his career as a player in the youth side of amateur club SC Varsseveld. He turned professional after signing for Dutch clubDe Graafschap in 1967, playing at theDoetinchem club under managerPiet de Visser. In 1973, during Hiddink's second spell there, he and manager de Visser earned promotion to theEredivisie, the top league in Dutch football.[2] For some years the careers of the two men intersected: when Hiddink managedPSV Eindhoven, De Visser scouted numerous South American players for the team, such asRonaldo,Romário, and former Chelsea defenderAlex. Also, De Visser, in his role as personal advisor toRoman Abramovich, was influential in bringing Hiddink to theRussia national team and later toChelsea as caretaker manager following the dismissal of BrazilianLuiz Felipe Scolari.
Hiddink spent most of his playing career at De Graafschap, including three years under de Visser, and remains a fan of the club. He joined PSV in 1970, but after failing to win a permanent position in the team, rejoined De Graafschap after just one year and remained there until 1977. In 1981, he rejoined De Graafschap again and retired a year later. Generally he played as amidfielder.
Hiddink honed his coaching skills as assistant manager at PSV Eindhoven from 1983 until he was appointed manager there in March 1987. When he took command, the club was three points behindAjax in theleague, with ten matches remaining. PSV, however, managed to win the championship six points ahead of Ajax.
It was at PSV where he led the team to its first everEuropean Cup triumph in 1988 (andThe Treble), affirming the Eindhoven club's ranking as one of the three giants of Dutch football, alongside rivals Ajax andFeyenoord. He also won three Eredivisie titles with the club between 1987 and 1990. "Hiddink will never take all the credit for himself, he will also involve his staff in it. That adds to the strong sense of unity. Hiddink has final responsibility, but always shares it with the team around him. He is a real team player", saidBerry van Aerle, who was coached by Hiddink in two separate periods with PSV.[3]
Hiddink faced his biggest managerial challenge when he took over the reins of theNetherlands national team on 1 January 1995,[5] where he took charge of a team of talented individuals continually racked by internal arguments and disputes. His usual4–4–2 tactic of deploying wingers backed-up by central midfielders resulted in goals from defensive midfielders such asPhilip Cocu andEdgar Davids. Hiddink took a firm approach to the team, an example of which was demonstrated atUEFA Euro 1996 when Edgar Davids was sent home after an argument with Hiddink.[6][7] The team reached the quarter-finals of that tournament.
He was able to prevent further internal conflict in the1998 FIFA World Cup[7] where his team played some of the more entertaining football in that tournament.[8] The team beatArgentina in the quarter-finals 2–1, then suffered a defeat at the hands ofBrazil on penalties in the semi-final—later finishing fourth. This loss signalled an end of another era for Hiddink, as he resigned as Netherlands national coach soon after, where he was then appointed manager of Spanish giantsReal Madrid.
Hiddink became manager of SpanishLa Liga sideReal Madrid in the summer of 1998, replacingJupp Heynckes, but poor league form and off-pitch remarks about the board and finances of the club prompted his termination in February 1999.[9][10]
Hiddink then took over the reins at Spanish clubReal Betis in 2000 for the rest of the season. His time there ended badly, with him being sacked by May 2000.[11]
In the summer of 2000, rumours were rife over his future, with Scottish clubCeltic among the clubs named as a potential destination.[11] The temptation to manage another World Cup–bound international team proved irresistible to him, however, and he agreed to coach theSouth Korea national team on 1 January 2001.
Hiddink became manager of South Korea in January 2001.[12] Success hardly came easy with a team that had appeared in five straight World Cups but had yet to win a single match. South Korea co-hosted the2002 FIFA World Cup tournament with Japan. Both countries were expected to make the second round of the tournament and it was clearly expressed that Hiddink's team was expected to perform to that standard as well.[13]
Hiddink's first year in charge was met with heavy criticism from the South Korean media,[13] as he was often spotted together with his girlfriend when some felt[13] he should instead have been busy working on the team. After a 2–1 loss to theUnited StatesGold Cup team in January 2002, he was criticized again for not taking his job seriously.[13] Nevertheless, the team he assembled was a cohesive unit. However, Hiddink began focusing on physical fitness for players during training in preparation for the World Cup later that year.
At the World Cup, Hiddink's team achieved its first victory in the tournament's history in a 2–0 group win overPoland. After a 1–1 draw with the U.S. and a 1–0 victory against heavily favouredPortugal, South Korea advanced to the second round.
Their second-round opponents wereItaly, whom they upset 2–1 with a golden goal byAhn Jung-hwan. The Korean public began to dream of a semifinal berth, something that came true after another upset, this timeSpain, on penalties in the quarterfinal. This surpassed the feat ofNorth Korea in the tournament36 years earlier, which beatItaly to reach the quarterfinals.
South Korea's miracle run finally ended afterGermany underRudi Völler won 1-0 in the semifinals. As with the Dutch team four years earlier in France, Hiddink led his team to fourth place after a 3–2 defeat toTurkey in the consolation game.
Prior to the tournament, football pundits and fans alike never expected this level of success. Many in South Korea were overjoyed with the semi-final berth.[13] Hiddink became the first-ever person to be givenhonorary South Korean citizenship.[14][15] In addition, other rewards soon followed — a private villa inJeju-do island,[15] free flights for life withKorean Air andAsiana Airlines, and freetaxi rides, amongst others.[15] The Gwangju World Cup Stadium inGwangju, where South Korea qualified for the semi-finals, was renamedGuus Hiddink Stadium in his honor shortly after the tournament.[16] His hometown ofVarsseveld, where aGuuseum was set up by his relatives in his honor, became a popular stop for South Koreans visiting the Netherlands.
Hiddink chose to return to his native country and took over the coaching duties atPSV Eindhoven in 2002.[17] During his second spell with PSV, Hiddink won threeDutch league titles (2002–03,2004–05, and2005–06), the 2005Dutch Cup and the 2003Dutch Super Cup. In Europe, the2004–05Champions League led to PSV's 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 narrowly lost the semi-final toMilan, onaway goals.
On 22 July 2005, Hiddink became manager of theAustralia national team.[20] He announced he would manage both PSV and Australia at the same time.[20]
In theplay-offs held withUruguay 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[21] — 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 a 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' 2006 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.[22] More seriously, his reputation was enhanced by his transformation of the national side, with pundits focusing on the improvement to Australia's defence. He is credited with turning a team which conceded many goals underFrank 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 legendJohan Neeskens and former Australia internationalGraham Arnold.
The Socceroos defeatedJapan 3–1 during their first game in the2006 FIFA World Cup, withTim Cahill scoring two goals (84', 89') andJohn Aloisi scoring one (92') all in the last eight minutes to claim their first World Cup goals and victory ever.[23] An early controversial[24] call by the Egyptian referee that awarded a goal to the Japanese team, despite an apparent foul to Australia goalkeeperMark 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'sYūichi 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 Andreas Werz said that while Japan's first goal was irregular, Egyptian referee Essam Abdel Fatah should also have given Japan a penalty.[25]
Australia followed the match against Japan with a 2–0 loss to Brazil, meaning the Socceroos needed at least a draw againstCroatia in their last group match to qualify for the knockout stages for the first time in its history. After a match fraught with controversy and erroneous decisions from refereeGraham Poll, including an unprecedented three yellow cards given to the same Croatian player, ironically the Australian-bornJosip Šimunić, the game ended 2–2, and the Socceroos had their draw thanks to a goal fromHarry Kewell to level the game with minutes to spare.
In the second round,Italy beat Australia 1–0. After controversially sending off Italian defenderMarco Materazzi in the 55th minute, Spanish refereeLuis Medina Cantalejo awarded Italy'sFabio Grosso a controversial penalty kick eight seconds from the end of normal time, which was converted byFrancesco Totti. This put Australia out of the World Cup, marking the official end of Hiddink's tenure as Australia's national coach.[26]
On 10 April 2006, Hiddink announced on Dutch television that he would take over as manager of theRussia national team.[27] He signed a two-year contract in April 2006 worth €2 million a year.[27] His duties for Russia started after managing Australia during the 2006 World Cup.[27]
Russia'sEuro 2008 qualification hopes came into question after a 2–1 loss toIsrael. However, after a win againstAndorra, andEngland losing out to Croatia on the last match day, Russia and Hiddink secured qualification for the final stages ofEuro 2008. At the tournament, the Russians managed to reach the semi-finals with victories against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals[28] and defending championsGreece in the group stage.[29]
Piet de Visser, a former head scout of Hiddink's atPSV and now a personal assistant toRoman Abramovich atChelsea, recommended Hiddink to the Chelsea owner, following the departure ofAvram Grant at the end of the2007–08 Premier League season.[30][31] In March 2008, however, Hiddink had already chosen to exercise the two-year extension with Russia, keeping him in the national team's head coaching role until 2010.[32]
In November 2009, Russia was defeated bySlovenia in a2010 World Cup qualifying play-off, casting doubt on future ambitions.[33] On 13 February 2010, it was confirmed that Hiddink would leave the position when his contract expired on 30 June.[34]
After the sacking ofChelsea's manager, the BrazilianLuiz Felipe Scolari, during the2008–09 Premier League season, Chelsea confirmed on 11 February 2009 that Hiddink would become Scolari's replacement until the end of the season, whilst continuing his duties with Russia.[35] Hiddink's first game in charge was a 1–0 away victory againstAston Villa atVilla Park.[36] His first game in charge atStamford Bridge was a 1–0 victory overJuventus in theChampions League knockout stage.[37] Success continued in the form of a 3–1 away victory againstLiverpool—commentators stated that Hiddink had rejuvenated Chelsea following Scolari's departure.[38][39] After knocking Liverpool out of the competition, Hiddink went on to take Chelsea to the semi-finals of theChampions League, where the club was eliminated on the away goals rule after playing eventual winnersBarcelona; a 93rd-minute Barça goal in a 1–1 controversial draw at Stamford Bridge, preceded by a 0–0 at theCamp Nou, sealed Chelsea's fate.[40]
Hiddink only lost once during his tenure as Chelsea manager, a 1–0 loss toTottenham Hotspur atWhite Hart Lane, whereLuka Modrić scored the only goal of the match. As it turned out, even winning every league game in charge would not have been enough to see Hiddink secure the Premier League title. In the final home game of the season, in which Chelsea beatBlackburn Rovers 2–0, Chelsea home fans chanted Hiddink's name throughout the match and called for Chelsea ownerRoman Abramovich to "sign him up" on a permanent basis.[41] Hiddink's highly positive reception highlighted the Chelsea fans' appreciation of the manager. He marked an end to hisPremier League campaign with a 3–2 away win overSunderland.[citation needed]
In his last game as interim coach of Chelsea, he won the 2009FA Cup by beatingEverton 2–1 atWembley.[42] He was visibly pleased at winning the Cup, and in subsequent interviews said it was one of his biggest achievements. Even though throughout his tenure at Chelsea various players asked him to stay, including captainJohn Terry,Michael Ballack andPetr Čech, Hiddink always stated that he intended to return to his post with Russia. As a parting gift, the Chelsea players gave him an engraved watch and a shirt signed by all of the players.[citation needed]
On 11 August 2010, Turkey defeatedRomania, 2–0, in an international friendly inIstanbul.Emre Belözoğlu gave Turkey the lead in the 82nd minute after converting a spot kick, followed byArda Turan doubling the scoreline after netting from 30 yards out.[citation needed] Hiddink resigned following Turkey's failure to qualify forEuro 2012 after losing 3–0 on aggregate toCroatia in the playoffs.[46]
On 17 February 2012, Hiddink agreed an 18-month deal to manage Russian clubAnzhi Makhachkala, his first permanent club post in six years.[47] In hissecond season, he led the team to the bronze medal in theRussian Premier League, and Anzhi made it to the round of 16 of theUEFA Europa League for the first time. In the quarter-finals of the same competition, having gone down to ten men 55 minutes into the second leg againstNewcastle United, Anzhi came close to going through whenMbark Boussoufa's free kick hit the post beforePapiss Cissé headed home the winner in the last seconds of the tie, meaning the Magpies won 1–0 on aggregate. This was the second time that the English side have knocked out a team managed by Hiddink in the competition, having beaten his PSV side 3–2 on aggregate in the quarter-finals of the2003–04 season. He announced his retirement at the end of the 2012–13 season on 28 November 2012, but later changed his mind.
On 11 June 2013, Hiddink decided to extend his contract by one more year at Anzhi. Just two games into the2013–14 Russian Premier League season after a 2–1 defeat atDynamo Moscow, however, he unexpectedly resigned on 22 July 2013. He said he left because he completed his mission, which he said was to develop Anzhi in a way that it could progress without him.[48]
On 28 March 2014, it was announced that Hiddink would return to manage the Dutch national team afterLouis van Gaal would step down following the2014 World Cup. Hiddink agreed to manage the team up toUEFA Euro 2016, withDanny Blind andRuud van Nistelrooy assisting him and Blind to eventually replace him.[49] His second spell in charge of the team began with a 2–0 defeat to Italy in a friendly on 4 September 2014, with both goals conceded and a red card received within the first ten minutes of the match.[50] Five days later, the Dutch began theirUEFA Euro 2016 qualifying campaign with a 2–1 defeat away to theCzech Republic,[51] a 3–1 victory againstKazakhstan and a 2–0 defeat in the hands ofIceland a month later.[52][53]
The 2015 calendar year began in March with a match against Turkey, ending in a 1–1 draw.[54] On 29 June 2015, Hiddink left his position.[55] Two days later, he was succeeded by his assistant, Danny Blind.[56] It was unknown for a long time whether Hiddink was fired or left his position voluntarily, but on 21 November 2015, he said, whilst on vacation in France, that he was fired from the post.[57]
On 19 December 2015, Hiddink was appointed first-team manager of English sideChelsea until the end of the2015–16 season, following the dismissal ofJosé Mourinho; he joined the club in the same capacity he did back in 2009. After being appointed as interim manager, Hiddink spoke, saying he was "excited to return to Stamford Bridge" and "I am looking forward to working with the players and staff at this great club and especially renewing my wonderful relationship with the Chelsea fans."[58] After the home draw againstStoke City, Hiddink set a new record for the longest unbeaten streak as a new manager in thePremier League with 12 games unbeaten.[59]
Chelsea ended the season in tenth place in thePremier League, climbing six positions from 16th upon Hiddink's arrival.[60]
On 10 September 2018, Hiddink took over theChina under-21 national team but was fired in September 2019 after a string of disappointing results, culminating with a 2–0 defeat againstVietnam under-22 men's team.[61] The coach of the Vietnamese team coincidentally wasPark Hang-seo, assistant coach of South Korea's national team in the 2002 World Cup under Hiddink.
After failing to lead the nation to2022 FIFA World Cup qualification, Hiddink contractedCOVID-19 in 2021, promptingPatrick Kluivert to step in as interim manager of the team.[63] On 9 September 2021, Hiddink officially stepped down as head coach of Curaçao and announced his managerial retirement at the age of 74.[64]
Hiddink came out of retirement to assist his former Socceroos assistantGraham Arnold in Australia's two-match friendly series against New Zealand, for regular assistant coachRené Meulensteen was scouting the Socceroos' Qatar 2022 opponents in Europe.[65]
The temporary arrangement formed part of the Socceroos' centenary celebrations. Hiddink was on the Australian bench for their 1–0 win inBrisbane on 22 September 2022, and inAuckland three days later.
In February 2007, Hiddink was given a six-month suspended jail sentence and fined €45,000 after being found guilty of tax evasion by a Dutch court. Prosecutors had demanded a ten-month prison sentence for Hiddink, who was accused of evading €1.4 million in Dutch taxes by claiming to be a resident of Belgium from 2002 to 2003. The Dutch Tax Intelligence and Detection Service claimed that he had not spent enough nights at his Belgian house which he had stated was his primary address. Hiddink denied this accusation.[66][67]
^Juan Pedro Andrados; Marcos Cabaleiro Pérez (16 April 2001)."Spain 1999/2000 (Top Three Levels)". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved9 March 2013.
