Guus Hiddink Q&A

FacetoFace
talk s
Footb

to
,
Sim
a
G
ll
u
’

cceroo
s
u
d
s
eepest ,

thinker on Kuper a s
s, Eng
k
Hiddin out
b
land’
of
N INTERVIEW with Guus Hiddink
doesn’t feel like an interview;
it feels more like a chat. The
images RYAN PIERSE / GETTY IMAGES

competition might be hindering the Socceroos’

ambitions. He also looks back fondly on his time
in charge, and outlines what makes the physical
the So nd the state Dutchman is such a large, Australians different to players around the world.

flaws a e right now soothing, unhurried presence
m
the ga
that time seems to stop when he’s around. A born
networker, he’s always keen to connect with people.
We speak in Istanbul, where he’s now coaching
Turkey – his last coaching job, he thinks – but to
this man of the world, geography is insignificant.
In his natural habitat, the five-star hotel lobby, over
his ritual drink, the cappuccino, Hiddink sits back
and reflects at length on football today. Few bring
as much experience to the table as the 64-year-old
who took Australia into the second round of the
2006 tournament and has a glittering CV which also
includes Real Madrid, Chelsea, Netherlands, South
Korea and Russia.
Echoing the criticisms of the A-League by Pim
Verbeek, Hiddink tells us that Australia’s domestic
“Australia was just rough in a good way, and that’s
reflected in their football,” Hiddink says. “The first
training sessions I took with them, I could have
handed out legions of yellow cards. The attitude
of the people is, ‘Fight.’ And that’s what they did.
They kicked each other in training sessions!”
Hiddink analyses the World Cup failings of
England and Holland and gives a rare insight into
player management, including how he tried to make
Frank Lampard into a more efficient player. He
names the best team he has coached and why he
has little time for the new waves of data available
to modern-day coaches.
Always blunt, hugely entertaining and a blindingly
brilliant thinker on the game, what follows is Hiddink
at his best.

20 FOOTBALL+
 + Was 2010 the World Cup of faster,
harder, stronger?
I didn’t think it was the most enjoyable World Cup.
+ Were there no players you enjoyed watching?
I thought Lionel Messi promised a lot at first, but of
course his team probably wasn’t in balance, so they
got blows. Otherwise I didn’t see much that made me
think, ‘Gosh, I’ve really seen something new here.’
Germany looked good against England, but how
would the game finish if the old people of FIFA’s Rules
Committee had allowed [Frank] Lampard’s goal?
(Lampard’s shot bounced over the German goal line,
but the referee didn’t give a goal and play continued.) If
there’s a camera in the goal, it’s 2-2. Still, the Germans
played well. And Holland in the second half against
Brazil. You saw Germany’s very fast positional play.
Now they can vary the tempo well. In the past they
22 FOOTBALL+
sometimes just ran forward. But even Germany the right moments with the right speed in the right
wasn’t revolutionary. What they did has been done direction. I prefer looking at DVDs that show the whole
by other countries before – for instance by Holland. I field. Then I can see the distances between players,
don’t know if revolutions are still possible in football. or between lines. I can do more with that. Or you use
film to work with players on, ‘How do you defend one
+ What do you mean when you say ‘revolutions’? against one?’ or ‘How do you attack one on one?’ The
A revolution is: everyone gets a fright. People are physical side of the data isn’t my thing.
completely surprised. Like (Holland’s football in) 1974.
Or Milan with (Franco) Baresi: the whole team going + Apparently there were conflicts within the
forward like a steamroller without having the ball. 2010 Socceroos after they lost their first match
4-0 to Germany.
+ Perhaps the new computerised data on Of course that result was a shock in Australia. Viewing
kilometres, number of tackles etcetera will it from a distance, and thinking like a sportsman:
create the next tactical revolution. What can a maybe they hadn’t even expected it of Germany, the
coach learn from those data? light-footed way that Germany played them apart.
To be honest I don’t look at them much. The average
distance the team ran – those aren’t data I can do + The Germans did to the Australians what they
much with. You don’t know whether they ran at later did to England: they never gave these big
“The Socceroos side of
2006 wasn’t so different
from this recent one.
You can conclude that
the supply of younger
players isn’t enough”
+ You mean it won’t be simple to achieve you can use to achieve a goal, and which methods you
that with players from the A-League? can’t use. It’s the same with Brazilians: you mustn’t
Yes. insult them in front of a group. Well, you can do that to
a Hollander or Australian: one time, boom. Even if there
+ Have you discussed this with Frank Lowy? are three or four other people present you can make
No, not with Frank Lowy. Every now and then I talk demands – mutually, really. They aren’t so easily hurt.
to Phil Wolanski, who’s sort of his right hand – well, Australia was just rough in a good way, and that’s
“right hand”, I don’t want to be denigrating. He’s a reflected in their football too. The first training sessions I
very good man who’s close to the team. took with them, I could have handed out legions of yellow
cards. So the components of their football weren’t in
+ When you talk about your experiences with balance: the players’ effort was way above their strategic-
Australia, you always say how easy you found tactical thinking and acting. And added to that, the
the players to deal with. Why was that? attitude of the people is, ‘Fight.’ And that’s what they did.
I thought they were very nice to work with. (Hiddink laughs fondly.) They kicked each other in training
Uncomplicated. I didn’t have to use a careful, sessions. And they could take it, you see, because
roundabout initial approach that you sometimes need that’s what they’re used to. If that happened in Holland,
in other cultures. In Korean or Japanese culture, for there’d be a brawl in training. But with Australians it’s,
instance, you have to think first about which methods ‘No worries.’ They accept it of each other. Sometimes I’d
Celebrating with the FA
defenders a chance to tackle anyone, just passed Cup in 2009 and with
around them and ran into space. Chelsea star Michael
Yes, they saw that well. If you have the strength that Essien, above left
Australians have in the one-on-one duel, then you
as the opposing coach know you have to avoid that.
There’s nothing more irritating for someone who has a
lot of strength, who wants to tackle, to give him nothing
to hold on to, to not give him a chance to battle for the
ball. That’ll really frustrate him. And if the frustration
seeps into five or six positions in the team or even
more, then it’s a lost cause.
And there was something else I think you could
see in the Australian team: the side of 2006 wasn’t so
different from this recent one. I think it was 80 or 90 per
cent the same players. You can practically conclude
from that that the supply of 21, 20, 18, 19-year-old
players isn’t enough. Otherwise I think there’d have
been more competition for places.
+ Yet with Australia, not an abnormally talented
side, you nearly beat Italy in the second round
in 2006. How is that possible? Can countries
like South Korea who you coached in 2002 and
Australia one day even go one step further?
I think it all has to do with youth systems. And with
how competitive your league is, because if you look at
Australia, all the players who achieved that at the time,
who raised their performance, were already playing
for European clubs – even if not for top ones. The
guys who are coming up in Australia now are playing
in their own league, and they’re not encountering
significant opposition every week, let alone every four
days. So that’s problematic for those countries.
+You mean that the A-League could
disadvantage Australia, by keeping the
best players at home?
For the country itself, it’s always a nice thing to have.
But to create a very competitive national team that’s
going to make the global top 20 won’t be simple that
way, I think.
+ 23
FOOTBALL

Hiddink during his
reign with Netherlands
at the 1998 World Cup
think, ‘Oh, look at what’s happening on the field now,
in two seconds those guys are going to hit each other.’
And they didn’t. Of course you don’t want to throw
all that away, but you do add some tactical-strategic
exercises in training sessions, and then you first have
to take three steps back to explain it all.
+ Did Holland’s play at the World Cup
disappoint you?
Well, against Brazil, when we were 1-0 down, should
have been 2-0, Holland felt the need: we must do
more here or it’s over. Then I recognised how Holland
really should – [he trails off, presumably reluctant to
insult the Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk] You hear it
from people in international football: ‘Gosh, a shame
that we didn’t see much from Holland.’ Freshness
is our trademark. For the first time I experienced the
24 FOOTBALL+
of, ‘We’re coming out of our cave to get you.’ You
shouldn’t do that. I even felt [in the final] that we were
being protected.
+ By the referee Howard Webb, you mean? “The Netherlands ‘98 team had
so much. I’d stand there at training
Yes.
and in matches just enjoying the
+ Meaning that he could have sent off multiple
Dutch players?
That was possible. And you don’t need intimidation
against Spain. You don’t believe it intimidates them,
do you? Deep down they think, ‘We’re going to play
level . . . and later at Chelsea
these guys off the park.’
I also got the sense: ‘Hey, this
+ What about England’s continuing failure at
big tournaments. Is their problem a lack of team is almost unbeatable’”
football intellect?
I did think England were disappointing in that regard. If
you look at [Gareth] Barry, he could have played more
intelligently. He ends up swimming because he’s not
coaching (talking to teammates) in midfield, and so is
forced into playing left-back or right-back. You don’t
see that internal coordination in the English team. You
can use weird words like ‘chemistry’, but you didn’t see
that Heskey and Rooney were a forward partnership
that gelled, even though they’ve perhaps played
together a lot and certainly know each other from the
English league. The centre of your team, defensive
midfield and central defence, is really the nerve centre.
England’s wasn’t sending out any impulses saying,
‘This is how we must do it.’ You can see if coaching is
happening, and there was none or almost none.
+ You managed English internationals like John
Terry and Frank Lampard at Chelsea, where
they do play well. Is it because there they play
alongside foreigners?
Terry does coach. Frank is more a box-to-box player,
who wants to go everywhere. At training I sometimes
limited him: ‘that’s your zone, that’s your task.’ Frank
has so much energy and drive that he often does
too much. In my early period with Chelsea too: he’d
World Cup as a supporter watching on TV, in Holland, come to his own defence to get the ball, worm his sort of screen around them. Others think, ‘Oh, I can’t career be winning the European Cup with
with a lot of people in my house. I was sometimes way through midfield and then often actually end up touch him or make demands on someone who’s such little PSV Eindhoven in 1988, or working
disappointed that we didn’t see a better World Cup scoring, in his energy-eating style. I’ve sat down with a big name in England.’ with Holland of 1998?
from them. him, and said, ‘We should be capable of building up I think the latter. If you look at how that match was
ourselves from the back and getting the ball to you + Was the Dutch team of the 1998 World Cup, played [the European Cup final of 1988], it wasn’t
+ Many observers were upset with the Dutch later, so that it’s easier for you to get through a season which lost the semi on penalties against Brazil, a top match at all. Benfica didn’t want to play, and
tactics against Spain in the final, were the fouls of 60 games.’ And he’d say, ‘I never thought of that.’ the best side you ever worked with? we couldn’t completely make use of that, so you get
unacceptable? Yes, that team had so much. I’d stand there at training a careful, probing, toe-curling match. Constantly
Yes. At a certain point you were reminded of the days + So when Englishmen are going everywhere and in matches just enjoying the level. You can’t tell working with the top is the most beautiful.
when there were still pitched battles, like when Coen to get the ball, you get Steven Gerrard running the boys that every minute. But it was so subtle:
Moulijn [a Feyenoord winger of the 1960s] was being 20 metres with the ball while the opposition’s small space, big space, superintelligent, based on + But now, with Turkey, like previously
chased across the field by Real Madrid. In those days, defence is already in place waiting. speed. And later with Chelsea I also got the sense: with Australia, you’ve chosen to work with
if it was the World Club Cup, the shivers would go I think so. There you can see if a team has ‘Hey, this team is almost unbeatable.’ We lost one a team that isn’t top.
through you because the intimidation was going to agreements about particular patterns. Apparently game, against Tottenham, when Heurelho Gomes I did Russia for four years. We came just one goal short
be so strong. there weren’t. Then there’s another factor: the status (Tottenham’s keeper) pulled everything out. of qualifying for the World Cup. Then came Turkey,
But now football is so internationalised, teams play of players. At a certain point players get a status – which isn’t top, because they have declined the last few
each other so often, that it’s not any longer a case sometimes rightly, sometimes forced – that creates a + Would the most satisfying point of your years. But the people who run it here made a serious
+ 25
FOOTBALL
 new power bloc in global football?
No, I don’t see them as an important new power bloc.
Clearly they do keep adopting the methods, including
the training methods of the European countries, but
I don’t see them as a power bloc that in the next few
years can force out Europe or in part South America.
I can’t see that happening easily.
+ Because they lack individual player quality?
They probably do have that individual quality. I just
think they have a slightly different organisational
structure. They have their clubs, which are based
on companies. And the clubs don’t really have a
youth system going from six years old to 18.
Certainly not all clubs have such a structured
organisation, leaving aside the issue of whether
Hiddink and Harry
Kewell are all smiles the content of it is good.
during the 2006 World
Cup in Germany
+ So it’s the quality of youth training that
makes Europe supreme – the fact that in
the World Cup final seven players raised in
Barcelona’s La Masia play against seven
raised in Ajax Amsterdam’s academy?
Yes, I think so. But there is a lot of talent and will in
the Asian players. You’d think that more would be
playing in Europe. Because the scouts of the big
clubs are in Asia too. Yet there aren’t many Asian
players in the big clubs. There must be something
that stops that happening.
+ What type of players do you prefer?
What I do like is athletic players. When I see some of
the teams at the World Cup, and I see some of the
Ivory Coast’s players for instance, well, they’re athletic
players. I really enjoy seeing that. And it doesn’t at all
have to go at the expense of creativity or technique,
as is sometimes said. That’s not necessarily so at all.
+ Michael Essien must typify that?.
Essien is a great example of that. Jon Obi Mikel is
still gaining experience, but he’s also a fine athlete.
I have to say that Lampard himself is also impressive
in terms of athletic potential.
+ Is Turkey your last job as a coach?
Yes, I think it must be. Mind you, I once said when
I came back from coaching in Spain, ‘Well, I’ll do this
for a bit longer, and then I’ll go and do something
else.’ That was 15 years ago. But given my age (64)
I won’t be making great strange leaps anymore.
It all remains fascinating. For a bit longer, haha!
No, for a long time.

impression. I hadn’t expected that. Their organisation is

more professional than their recent results. And I didn’t
actually have many offers to do big countries. This is a
big football country internally, but it’s not a big football
country internationally. Look at the FIFA rankings, that
says something. I think they’re now ranked 28th.
Here there’s a very pleasant culture where players

How
treat each other nicely, and where I think more could
be demanded in training. Then the level of matches
would rise. When we toured the US in May, I’d hear

Hiddink
from my assistant, ‘We trained hard today.’ I lead
training sessions without a watch. In America the
players wanted to give me a watch as a present, when

became
they realised I was training more than two hours. I think
here they train more just for maintenance. I notice it

in the squad: they pamper and spoil each other. In
a game in training, when someone gets a knock, the
player will go down, and three or four medical people
will run up to him from all sides with bags even though
you can see, ‘There’s no broken ankle here, nothing.’
The players like to stay down. It gives the others two
minutes break. These are little things, but if you can
weed them out you’ll keep reaching a higher level.
+ In your whole career as a national team
manager, what you always seem to be doing
is teaching western European football to
countries that don’t know it.
Because western Europe is the standard. I did that in
Korea too. At one point in Korea they said (they’re too
polite to demand it!), ‘We should see if we can’t get
into the last 16 (at the 2002 World Cup).’ Well, if that’s
the demand then you have to work at the standard of
those 16 countries. Then we have to train as hard as
they do, bring in the same type of players, create the
conditions to practise, etcetera.
+ The new countries – Korea, Japan, the US:
there seems a trend in which they’re learning to
play western European football very efficiently.
Australia was a part of that trend in 2006. Do
you see these new countries as an important
Aussie Guus
In his hotel suite in Sandton, Johannesburg,
the day before the World Cup final, Frank Lowy
explained why he hired Guus Hiddink to coach
the Socceroos. “It didn’t happen by design,”
Lowy told us. “It was one of those quirks of fate.”
Lowy had done a lot of business in the
Netherlands with his company, Westfield.
“One of our bankers was at ABN-Amro
(the Dutch bank).
“When I took the job (with the Australian
federation) I rang him up and said, ‘Find me a
good Dutch coach,’ and he did.” recalls Lowy.
“I have a very high regard for Dutch football.
It represents a system which suits
Australia well. There are a lot of similarities
between Dutch and Australian people,
besides being direct. In football they are
both aggressive.
“Some years ago Australian football
was kick-and-rush, English style.
That has disappeared now.”

26 FOOTBALL+ + 27
FOOTBALL