Hiddink Turns Up At Turkey

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a big fan of Guus Hiddink. Mainly, because I've always backed his teams with cold hard cash and until Russia's failure to qualify for World Cup 2010, he has never let me down.

Indeed, I decided against starting at Euro 2008 blog because I was so confident that England weren't going to qualify because they were in the same group as Hiddink's Russia and the - at the time - superior Croatia. That blog is here.

Anyway, it looks like the rumours suggesting Hiddink would be managing Nigeria at the World Cup Finals were wrong, as the Dutchman has taken over the role of national team coach of Turkey.

Turkey, like Russia, failed to qualify for the World Cup Finals, but were impressive at Euro 2008, so the raw materials are definitely there.

A few pundits have questioned why Hiddink would want to take over Turkey but to me, it's a good move. Their Euro 2012 qualifying group includes Germany, Austria, Belgium, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan (aren't some of those countries in Asia?) and you would back Hiddink to get a well organised Turkey to get through that Group. In fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do.