Dick Advocaat

Richard Advocaat (born September 27, 1947 in The Hague, Netherlands) is the Dutch coach of the Russian pro soccer team Zenit. He has served as coach of his native Dutch national football team and more recently as the chief of South Korea national football team, earning the team's first World Cup win in away soil in the FIFA World Cup finals against Togo and drawing against veterans France. Korea failed to make it into the round of 16 after a loss against Switzerland. His appointment as coach of the Korean team came after he opted out early from his contract with United Arab Emirates.

Playing career

A temperamental and hard-working but nonetheless unspectacular midfielder during his playing days, the clubs he played for include: ADO Den Haag, VVV Venlo, Roda J.C., Sparta Rotterdam, and FC Utrecht in the Netherlands and Chicago Sting in the U.S.A.

Coaching Career

He then moved onto coaching at the tender age of 32, starting at Haarlem and S.V.V. before becoming assistant to footballing legend Rinus Michels at the Dutch national team.

He led the Dutch team to the quarter-finals of the 1994 World Cup as Head Coach in his first spell in charge (1992-1994). The Dutch, while managing to stave off the infighting which have plagued talented Dutch teams of the past under his tutelage, were defeated by Brazil in the quarter-finals. This signalled the end of Advocaat's debut international coaching career.

He then returned to coaching at club level at first with PSV where he won his first trophy as coach winning the Dutch Cup in 1996 and the Dutch League Championship a year later. In 1998 Advocaat accepted the invitation from Rangers chairman David Murray to become the Scottish Premier League team's new manager. After dismantling the Rangers' Legendary Nine In a Row team, Advocaat spent the summer of 1998 turning Rangers into a Scottish team with a Dutch core by roping in a legion of Dutch internationals like Arthur Numan, Bert Konterman, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Michael Mols, Ronald de Boer and Fernando Ricksen.

He successfully reclaimed the Scottish Premier League crown, with his first season in charge culminating with a spectacular treble achievement (two cup victories, as well as the league). A season later he again won the Scottish League championship and guided Rangers into the UEFA Champions League having beaten Parma A.C. in a qualifier. However, after claiming it would take Celtic ten years to catch up to Rangers, the arrival of Martin O'Neill at Celtic put pressure on Advocaat as Celtic won a domestic treble in season 2000-01. Celtic looked like retaining the league championship half way through the next season and as a result Advocaat was moved upstairs from the manager's position. Alex McLeish was appointed as his successor with Advocaat moving to the position of General Manager. After ensuring that Rangers built a first rate, multi-million pound, youth development system Murray Park which is regarded as one of the finest in Europe but has been widely ridiculed by rival fans for its failure to produce quality players, Dick Advocaat left Rangers for Holland as McLeish went on to have a successful run as Rangers' Manager.

He rejoined the national team set-up following Louis van Gaal's failure to take the national team to the 2002 World Cup in January 2002 and presided over the Netherlands' qualification for Euro 2004 via the play-offs. Holland had finished second in their group behind the Czech Republic and therefore went into a play-off in order to qualify for Euro 2004. They managed to achieve this after a 6-1 aggregate win over Scotland but not before surviving a harrowing encounter: losing 1-0 in the first leg in Scotland. Advocaat was criticised severely by the Dutch media, so much so that several of the team's players refused to speak to the media even after the comfortable and inspired 6-0 victory in the return leg at the Amsterdam ArenA. For a short time after that, the football world placed trust in Advocaat that he was the coach to bring glory to the hotly-favored 'Oranje'.

Despite taking Holland to the semi-final stage of Euro 2004, the Dutch media were critical of Advocaat. Holland were beaten 2-1 by Portugal in the semi-finals of Euro 2004 after a dismal performance. The team also made several criticisms of his tactics, especially those in the team's shock loss to the Czech Republic in the second game of the first round of the tournament. In that game, after Netherlands lost their two goal lead against Czechs, Advocaat made a tactical change that shocked even his own players as he brought on the ageing Paul Bosvelt in midfield position replacing crowd favorite Arjen Robben who had been contributing immensely throughout the match. The Czechs seized the opportunity to capitalise on it and scored decisive goal. Shortly after the tournament with even death threats posted to him, Advocaat quit his job as head coach on July 6, 2004. He then went briefly back into club management with German team Borussia Mönchengladbach however he resigned on 18 April 2005 after less than six months at the helm.

His nickname is "The Little General", which is a reference to his mentor Rinus Michels' sobriquet "The General".

In July 2005, he took a job as coach of United Arab Emirates, but quit in September to take over South Korea's national team. Expectations were high after the Koreans' achievements on home soil back in 2002 FIFA World Cup. In the 2006 edition, Korea got its first win on away soil in the FIFA World Cup finals with a 2-1 victory over Togo. They also scored a late equalizer to draw 1-1 against veterans France, and the results of the two games put them in a position to qualify from the tight group. However, Korea failed to make it into the round of 16 after a 2-0 loss against Switzerland, while France had defeated Togo 2-0 to advance, which was a disappointing end to what had been a promising start for the Koreans.

He took over Zenit following Korea Republic's rather disappointing campaign in 2006 FIFA World Cup.

See also

• Pim Verbeek
• Guus Hiddink
• Afshin Ghotbi