Australia grateful to have Hiddink as coach

SYDNEY, May 26: Australians have always thought of themselves as the lucky country but even the most optimistic cannot believe how fortunate they are to have Guus Hiddink coaching their national soccer team.

Australia have long been one of the great underachievers in football but in Hiddink they have finally found a man who really does seem to have the golden touch.

The Dutchman is one of the most sought-after coaches in world football and while his contract ends after the World Cup and he heads off to coach Russia, it was a major coup for Australia to secure his services.

He took over the reins last year when former coach Frank Farina stepped down and brought instant success; helping the Socceroos to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in 32 years with a nerve-racking penalty shoot-out win over Uruguay.

Now he has his sights set on Germany. Few would give Australia any chance of making an impact in a tough group that includes world champions Brazil, Croatia and Japan were it not for Hiddink.

The 59-year-old was an undistinguished professional player but has built up an extraordinarily successful CV as a coach, winning a stack of Dutch leagues and Dutch cups and a European Cup with PSV Eindhoven.

He was appointed Dutch national coach in 1995, leading the Netherlands to the quarter-finals of Euro 96 and then the semi-finals of the World Cup in France in 1998.

His willingness to travel saw him take up coaching roles in the United States, Turkey and Spain, where he won a World Club Cup with Real Madrid. He then embarked on what many saw as his greatest challenge, coaching co-hosts South Korea at the 2002 World Cup.

South Korea had never won a match at the finals and only two Asian teams -- North Korea in 1966 and Saudi Arabia in 1994 -- had ever made it past the first round. But under Hiddink, South Korea stormed through to the semi-finals.

He was given honorary citizenship, free flights on Korean Airlines for the rest of his life, a villa on a private island and had a World Cup Stadium re-named after him.

Expectations are now high in Australia that, having steered his team to their first World Cup finals since 1974, he can perform another miracle with the Socceroos.

REUTERS