Just an observation. Tell me if allyuha agree or not, but despite his tag of creating overachievers, Hiddink never went into a seemingly hopeless situation. His teams eh really no setta small team. Is not like Simoes at Jamaica, or Beenie taking T&T to our first WC. It is hugely impressive to take South Korea to the WC semis, Aussies to WC 2nd round or Russia to Euro semis (and maybe beyond), but he swimming in an entirely different ocean from men like Simoes, Bora, Beenie etc..
South Korea was a regular world cup qualifier who always put in decent performances. Hiddink tighten some screws and also benefitted from strong home support and some of the most biased refereeing I've ever seen in a WC. He also inherited a dam good Australia ask England. But props for getting past uruguay and getting the monkey off their back.
As for Russia...no matter how brilliant Hiddink is..if Arshavin didn't come back I eh too sure anyone would think much of that team. Russia's resurgence in this tourney is more down to the return of the #10 than anything else imo. And Russia has tons of talent and is a sleeping Giant that has shown in the past it should be among Europe's elite. plus now they have Abramovic money.
So doh get me wrong...Hiddink is no joke. But when yuh start talking about taking T&T to a WC, Hiddink hasn't dared to venture into the real tough situations. he's always walked into a situation where the top talent was available, money was no problem and infrastructure was made for success. i think is a different toolset required to take charge of a sleeping giant that need tweaking, than a shambolic story, where nutten organized properly and talent limited