On the 1st, former Korean national football team coach Guus Hiddink was appointed PR ambassador for the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. /News 1
Guus Hiddink (78, Netherlands), former coach of the national football team, laughed saying, “I wasn’t hurt” at the nickname ‘Oh Dae-young’, which was used to criticize his poor performance before reaching a round 2002 World Cup semi-final.
Hiddink, who appeared on KBS’s ‘Morning Yard’ broadcast on the 9th, said, “I visited Korea at the invitation of the Korea Football Federation because a new football center is being established.” Previously, on the 31st of last month, Hiddink visited the construction site of the Korea Football Center, which will become a new landmark for Korean football.
Hiddink said, “I worked all over the world, including Korea, Spain, and Russia,” and added, “2002 was not an easy year for me.” Nevertheless, he said, “I liked the passion for work that I felt from the Korean people and players.”
Hiddink said he had a lot of trouble accepting the job as coach of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup team. He said, “If you think realistically, it was a wise decision not to take the position of director.” This was due to the conditions set by the Football Federation at the time. The goal was to advance to the round of 16 of the World Cup.
Hiddink said, “When I looked at the FIFA rankings at the time, I thought it was almost impossible.” When Hiddink took office in 2001, Korea was ranked 42nd by FIFA.
Hiddink said, “So I also set the opposite condition,” adding, “I asked for an environment to be created where we could gather and train the players of the national team for 1 year and 6 months.” This meant that the team had to send a player whenever Hiddink asked for him until the World Cup.
“There was another condition,” said Hiddink, “We had to improve our capabilities by playing evaluation games against powerful countries, not against countries with similar capabilities.” Then he said, “I know my nickname too,” and he said, “Oh Dae-young.”
Before the World Cup, Hiddink showed a poor performance in an evaluation match against a strong team. They lost 0-5 to France in May 2001, and lost 0-5 in an away friendly against the Czech Republic in August of the same year. This led to Hiddink earning the indecent nickname ‘Oh Dae-young’.
Hiddink said, “I wasn’t hurt by that nickname. One of the conditions I set was ‘not to choose the easy path in the preparation process,’ so even if I lost, I didn’t see it as just a loss because I would have gained a lot.”
Hiddink told Korean soccer fans who still remember him, “I’m grateful that even 22 years later, they’re still talking about the legend of the Korea-Japan World Cup.” He added, “I hope that we will not dwell in the past, but that we will move forward based on the abilities that we have accumulated then so that the next generation of aspiring football players can experience the same experience.”
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