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Guus Hiddink (; born 8 November 1946) is a Dutch former football manager and professional player. He enjoyed a long career playing as a midfielder in his native Netherlands. Retired as player in 1982, Hiddink went into management, leading both clubs and countries from across the globe to achieve various titles and feats. With PSV Eindhoven he won the European Champions Cup, the predecessor of the UEFA Champions League. With Real Madrid he won the Intercontinental Cup.
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 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 1977. In 1981, he rejoined De Graafschap and retired a year later. He generally played as a midfielder during his playing days.
It was at PSV where he led the team to its first ever European Cup triumph in 1988 (and The Treble), 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. "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," said Berry van Aerle, who was coached by Hiddink in two separate periods with PSV.
Overall Hiddink's PSV side won three consecutive Eredivisie titles, three consecutive and the European Cup in the historic Treble-winning season of 1987–88.
Hiddink also had a coaching stint at Turkish club Fenerbahçe in 1990, but was dismissed after one year, later joining Spanish giants Valencia CF.
He was able to prevent further internal conflict in the 1998 FIFA World Cup where his team played some of the more entertaining football in that tournament. The team beat Argentina in the quarter-finals 2–1, then suffered a defeat at the hands of Brazil 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 giants Real Madrid.
Hiddink then took over the reins at Spanish club Real Betis in 2000 for the rest of the season. His time at Real Betis ended badly, with Hiddink being sacked by May 2000.
In the summer of 2000, rumours were rife over his future, with Scottish club Celtic among the clubs named as a potential destination. The temptation to manage another World Cup-bound international team proved irresistible to him, however, as he agreed to coach the South Korea national team on 1 January 2001.
Hiddink's first year in charge was met with heavy criticism from the South Korean media, as he was often spotted together with his girlfriend when some felt he should instead have been busy working on the team. After a 2–1 loss to the United States 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. 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 over Poland. After a 1–1 draw with the U.S. and a 1–0 victory against the heavily favoured Portugal, South Korea advanced to the second round.
Their second-round opponents were Italy, whom they upset, 2–1, on a golden goal by Ahn Jung-hwan. The Korean public began to dream of a semifinal berth, something that came true after another upset, this time Spain, on penalties in the quarterfinal. This surpassed the feat of North Korean in the 36 years, when the North beat Italy to reach the quarterfinals.
South Korea's miracle run finally ended after Germany under Rudi Völler, won, 1-0, in the semifinals. As with the Dutch team four years before in France, Hiddink led his team to fourth place after a 3–2 defeat to Turkey 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 semifinal berth. Hiddink became the first-ever person to be given honorary South Korean citizenship. In addition, other rewards soon followed — a private villa in Jeju Island island; free flights for life with Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, free taxicab rides, among others. The Gwangju World Cup Stadium in Gwangju, where South Korea qualified for the semi-finals, was renamed Guus Hiddink Stadium in his honor shortly after the tournament. His hometown of Varsseveld, where a Guuseum was set up by his relatives in his honor, became a popular stop for South Koreans visiting the Netherlands.
In the 2005–06 Champions League season, PSV made it through the group stage, but was eliminated in the first knockout round, having lost five of its starting 11 (Park Ji-sung to Manchester United, Lee Young-pyo to Tottenham Hotspur, Mark van Bommel to FC Barcelona, Johann Vogel to Milan and Wilfred Bouma to Aston Villa) to transfers. This period at PSV made Hiddink the most successful Dutch coach in history, with six Dutch League titles and four Dutch Cups, surpassing the record of Rinus Michels. Hiddink left the club in June 2006.
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 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. 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 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 Australia international Graham Arnold.
The Socceroos defeated Japan 3–1 during their first game in the 2006 FIFA World Cup, with Tim Cahill scoring two goals (84', 89') and John Aloisi scoring one (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 Australia 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 Yūichi 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.
Australia followed the match against Japan with a 2–0 loss to Brazil, leaving the Socceroos needed at least a draw against Croatia 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 referee Graham Poll, including an unprecedented three yellow cards given to the same Croatian player, ironically the Australian-born Josip Šimunić, the game ended 2–2, and the Socceroos had their draw thanks to a goal from Harry Kewell to level the game with minutes to spare.
In the second round, Italy beat Australia 1–0. After controversially sending off Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the 55th minute, Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo awarded Italy's Fabio Grosso a controversial penalty kick 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.
Russia's Euro 2008 qualification hopes came into question after a 2–1 loss to Israel. However, after a win against Andorra, and England losing out to Croatia on the last match day, Russia and Hiddink secured qualification for the final stages of Euro 2008. At the tournament, the Russians managed to reach the semi-finals with victories against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals and defending champions Greece in the group stage.UEFA Euro 2008 Group D
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, following the departure of Avram Grant at the end of the 2007–08 Premier League season. 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.
In November 2009, Russia was defeated by Slovenia in a 2010 World Cup qualifying play-off, casting doubt on future ambitions. On 13 February 2010, it was confirmed that Hiddink would leave the position when his contract expired on 30 June.
Hiddink only lost once during his tenure as Chelsea manager, a 1–0 loss to Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, where Luka 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 beat Blackburn Rovers 2–0, Chelsea home fans chanted Hiddink's name throughout the match and called for Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to "sign him up" on a permanent basis. Hiddink's highly positive reception highlighted the Chelsea fans' appreciation of the manager. He marked an end to his Premier League campaign with a 3–2 away win over Sunderland.
In his last game as interim coach of Chelsea, he won the 2009 FA Cup by beating Everton 2–1 at Wembley Stadium. 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 captain John Terry, Michael Ballack and Petr 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.
On 11 August 2010, Turkey defeated Romania, 2–0, in an international friendly in Istanbul. Emre Belözoğlu gave Turkey the lead in the 82nd minute after converting a spot kick, followed by Arda Turan doubling the scoreline after netting from 30 yards out. Hiddink resigned following Turkey's failure to qualify for Euro 2012 after losing 3–0 on aggregate to Croatia in the playoffs.
On 11 June 2013, Hiddink decided to extend his contract by one more year at Anzhi. Just two games into the 2013–14 Russian Premier League season after a 2–1 defeat at Dynamo 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.
The 2015 calendar year began in March with a match against Turkey, ending in a 1–1 draw. On 29 June 2015, Hiddink left his position. Two days later, he was succeeded by his assistant, Danny Blind. 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.
Chelsea ended the season in tenth place in the Premier League, climbing six positions from 16th upon Hiddink's arrival.
After failing to lead the nation to 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification, Hiddink contracted COVID-19 in 2021, prompting Patrick Kluivert to step in as interim manager of the team. On 9 September 2021, Hiddink officially stepped down as head coach of Curaçao and announced his managerial retirement at the age of 74.
Hiddink came out of retirement to assist his former Socceroos assistant, Graham Arnold, for Australia's two-match friendly series against New Zealand, as regular assistant coach René Meulensteen was scouting the Socceroos' Qatar 2022 opponents in Europe.
The temporary arrangement formed part of the Socceroos' centenary celebrations. Hiddink was on the Australian bench for their 1–0 win in Lang Park on September 22, 2022, and in Eden Park three days later.
| PSV Eindhoven | 16 March 1987 | 30 June 1990 | |
| Fenerbahçe | 1 July 1990 | 13 March 1991 | |
| Valencia CF | 1 July 1991 | 30 November 1993 | |
| Valencia | 26 March 1994 | 30 June 1994 | |
| Netherlands | 1 January 1995 | 12 July 1998 | |
| Real Madrid | 10 July 1998 | 24 February 1999 | |
| Real Betis | 1 February 2000 | 31 May 2000 | |
| South Korea | 1 January 2001 | 8 July 2002 | |
| PSV Eindhoven | 1 August 2002 | 30 June 2006 | |
| Australia | 22 July 2005 | 9 July 2006 | |
| Russia | 10 July 2006 | 30 June 2010 | |
| Chelsea | 16 February 2009 | 31 May 2009 | |
| Turkey | 1 August 2010 | 16 November 2011 | |
| Anzhi Makhachkala | 17 February 2012 | 22 July 2013 | |
| Netherlands | 1 August 2014 | 30 June 2015 | |
| Chelsea | 19 December 2015 | 15 May 2016 | |
| China U21/U23 | 10 September 2018 | 20 September 2019 | |
| Curaçao | 22 August 2020 | 9 September 2021 | |
San Jose Earthquakes
Netherlands
Real Madrid
South Korea
Russia
Chelsea
Individual
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