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‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, Guus Guus Guus’. Guus Hiddink’s reign as the coach of the Socceroos: a comparative cultural media analysis

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14660970.2012.627172

1743-9590

Pim Van den Hoven, Stephen Frawley,

Educational Research and Analysis

In 2005, a Dutch ‘super’ coach by name of Guus Hiddink achieved what many Australian football fans thought was an almost impossible task: he managed to lead the Australian football team to qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. This was only the second time Australia had qualified to play in this tournament, with the previous success being 32 years prior, in 1974. The purpose of this essay is to explore how the Australian and Dutch media covered Hiddink’s time as Australia’s national football coach. The research has utilized Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory in order to understand the similarities and differences between how both media represented Hiddink’s time in Australia. As outlined by Hofstede, Australian and Dutch societies maintain a number of similarities. They are similar in respect to the cultural dimensions of power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance. It was found however that both nations were substantially different in relation to Hofstede’s cultural dimension termed ‘masculinity versus femininity’.