Hiddink: Italians Trashed Dressing Room After 2002 Elimination

Renowned football manager Guus Hiddink recently reminisced about the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, where he led the South Korean national team to a remarkable fourth-place finish.

"I remember the evening before our match against Portugal, I met Luís Figo at the stadium. We knew each other from my time working in Spain. 'I'm already sweating, and we haven't even stepped onto the pitch yet. Tomorrow, your left-back will probably be breathing down my neck constantly,' he said. That defender was Lee Young-pyo, whom I later brought to PSV Eindhoven. 'Yes, he'll be everywhere you are,' I replied. Luís laughed, but the next day, Lee truly was his shadow. Park Ji-sung scored the winning goal and jumped into my arms. It was a symbolic moment. This hadn't been seen before in South Korea – a player jumping on his coach like that. There had always been a physical distance between them. I did everything in my power to make the boys feel freer and more relaxed.

After that, we sensationally eliminated Italy and Spain. There were controversial refereeing decisions in those matches – let's just say sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they don't. I never heard my Spanish friends complain about the referee. It's different with my Italian friends, though. They were furious about Francesco Totti's second yellow card – for 'diving' – and Damiano Tommasi's disallowed 'golden goal'. After the match, the Italians trashed the entire changing room – chairs were flying. I stood at a distance with my arms crossed, watching. The Italians needed to let off steam. They forget that Totti should have received a red card for an elbow earlier.

Ahn Jung-hwan scored the 'golden goal' for us; at the time, he was playing for Perugia. By Korean standards, he had an impressive physique. When I first saw him, Ahn arrived in fashionable clothes with neatly styled hair. He already had the mannerisms of an Italian, but he lacked physical presence. I drew his attention to this: 'Improve your physique, and you can return to the team.' He took my advice seriously. Nowadays, he frequently appears on television in South Korea; he's something of a showman there," Hiddink recounted to FourFourTwo.

"On the eve of the World Cup, I met with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. I had nicknames for many of the players and staff. Many of them were named Kim, Choi, Lee, or Park. I had a driver named Kim – so he became Driver Kim. We had a Kim who had previously worked in Germany – he was German Kim. The President was also named Kim. He had been through a lot, had been in opposition, and survived several assassination attempts. This made him walk slowly, so I thought: 'I'll call him Slow Kim.' When I mentioned this to him later, the people around him looked at me as if to say, 'How could you say such a thing?' But the President laughed. He had a sense of humor. He never spoke English publicly, but he did with me.

I had heard that South Korean Olympic champions were exempt from mandatory military service in the country. I thought I should see if the same could apply to our footballers if we reached the World Cup semi-finals. I didn't expect it to happen, but still. The day before the quarter-final against Spain, an answer came. During training, the translator came to me and said the President wanted to speak with me. He handed me a phone. 'If you beat Spain, all the boys will be exempt from military service,' the Korean President stated. I told the players this after training, and they couldn't believe it. They huddled together and started crying – truly crying. For them, it meant a lot, especially if you want to become a professional footballer in Europe. The President kept his word," added the former coach of PSV, Valencia, Real Madrid, Betis, and Chelsea.