Guus Hiddink – The David Beckham of Managers?

It’s official, Guus Hiddink is the new Chelsea boss, at least until the end of the season. But he’s staying on as Russia boss too, making him one of the few coaches pulling double duty – club and international.

“It’s a favour for a friend,” Hiddink said. “Abramovich does so much for Russian football that I wanted to give something back. He called me personally.”
…
“There are two scenarios: it goes bad and they say ‘go back east’ or it goes well, but I’m not thinking that far ahead. There will be no damage for the Russian national team, we focus now and in the future on the Russian team.”

I’m usually skeptical about managers working two jobs. Mostly because when I had two jobs back in the day I could never remember which one I was supposed to show up at.

And I remember Kevin Keegan tried it briefly with Fulham and England, before deciding it wasn’t such a clever idea after all.

But because Hiddink has done double duty before – he successfully coached PSV Eindhoven and Australia between 2005 and 2006 – I’m inclined to believe him. And it’s also true that Russia’s World Cup qualifiers this season are gimmes: At home to Azerbaijan in late March and away to Liechtenstein in early April. Steve McClaren could coach Russia for those games and get six points.

The problem is going to come at the end of the season. If Hiddink has done well, then there’ll likely be an offer for him to stay on at Chelsea. So in this respect Hiddink’s move to Chelsea is a lot like David Beckham’s move to Milan. Supposedly temporary, but we all know it probably won’t be.

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Category: World Football

Tags: Chelsea, Guud Hididnk, Russia, World Football

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