Hiddink hints at future role with Chelsea next season

Guus Hiddink's ties to Chelsea and, more specifically, Roman Abramovich date back to well before the start of his second stint as interim manager.

Abramovich had apparently twice tried to lure the highly respected Dutchman to Stamford Bridge -- via Piet de Visser, Hiddink's former colleague at PSV and also a close advisor to Chelsea's Russian owner -- before the then-manager of the Russian national team agreed to take over for Luiz Felipe Scolari purely as a favor to Abramovich in 2009.  At the end of that successful interim stint, Hiddink resisted all calls to stay on permanently, returning to Russia but failing to build on the great showing at Euro 2008.

"If it was any other club aside from Chelsea my answer would be a straight no. But Chelsea is different because I have good relations with the owner, so I would like to help them in this situation if I could. This would be a full managerial role, a day-to-day job. But this would only be for the next two or three months until the end of the season."

-Guus Hiddink, Feb. 2009; source: Guardian

With Hiddink looking to slowly wind down his involvement in football, his current role as Chelsea manager might be the last time he takes charge of a club or country.  However, the 69-year-old is open to perhaps staying on at Chelsea in some sort of advisory role, either directly to Abramovich (which has been rumored to be the case for much of the past decade anyway) or to new manager Conte or perhaps even as some sort of Director of Football, putting Michael "Scapegoat" Emenalo out of his misery.

"I had a short meeting with [Conte] about general things; football, Italy and about the work we did in the past months."

"If needed I'm available for the club, that's what I said before, because in the two spells I've been here, and from visiting in between, this is a club I love very much."

-Guus Hiddink; source: Chelsea FC

While it doesn't sound like Emenalo's going anywhere, adding another voice of reason to the backroom staff would not be the worst idea.  Stay with us, Mother Guus.