Australia coach Graham Arnold insisted Guus Hiddink’s stint as his assistant during their 1-0 win over New Zealand in Brisbane last night was a one-off and the Dutchman will not work with him at the World Cup in Qatar.
Hiddink, an icon in Australia following leading the national team to the 2006 World Cup finals and ending a 32-year absence from the tournament, was on the bench as he won Australia’s last game in front of its fans before the World Cup begins in November.
The 75-year-old former Netherlands and Real Madrid coach took over as assistant coach Rene Mullenstein as part of the centenary celebrations for Australia’s first international match.
Arnold stressed that this is Hidnik’s last game.
“It’s to celebrate 100 years, that’s all,” he said. He made great sacrifices to participate in the match. My assistant is watching France and Denmark now and Gus has helped celebrate 100 years since his first international match. He wanted to be a part of that and that’s it.”
Hiddink witnessed a disjointed performance from Arnold’s team as they prepared for the World Cup in a group that includes defending champions France, Denmark and Tunisia.
Or Mabel, a professional winger in Spain, scored the only goal of the match from long range, 13 minutes before the end of the first half.
Arnold admitted that his team needed to improve before participating in the finals.
He continued, “We changed the way we played and tried to press them hard with three attackers and our chances came from that. We are not going to play anywhere with this openness on the field. We were pushing too high and leaving spaces and that’s what I wanted. I wanted a physical match where the team would play man-to-man all over the field and have a physical fight. And we’ve got that. I wanted to see how fit they are. Some of them don’t play for their clubs, and they don’t get much time to play. It’s hard to go from training and not playing and suddenly doing what I tell them to do. So I take this responsibility.”