CELTIC had gone into the 1999/2000 season with high hopes with the so-called Dream Team of Kenny Dalglish and John Barnes in control of team matters.
A year later, both had departed Parkhead.
Barnes was sacked in the immediate aftermath of the most humiliating result in the club’s history – the 3-1 Scottish Cup loss to Inverness Caley Thistle on February 8 2000 – and Dalglish was handed the managerial role in a caretaker capacity. At the conclusion of a woeful campaign, the club legend was also on his way.In another CQN EXCLUSIVE series, we focus on how the Parkhead club recovered from the catastrophic loss to the Highlanders to rise from the debris as they were propelled into a new era.Here is Part Fourteen of edited extracts from Celtic author Alex Gordon’s tribute book, ‘The Winds of Change‘, which was released in 2015 by CQN.
It was time for the annual ritual that was taking shape: who would start in the Celtic dugout for the 2000–01 season?
The names spilled out here and there, as usual. The Dutch group Willem II’s Co Adriaanse was among the first to surface. He decided to sign with Ajax for the upcoming season, therefore the rumors about him were short-lived.
Leo Beenhakker, a Dutch coach who was about to leave Feyenoord, was also rumored to be in the mix. Ironically, he also became Director of Technical Affairs for the giants of Amsterdam. He replaced Adriaanse with Ronald Koeman after a year.
Another person to be mentioned was Berti Vogts, who had left his position as manager of Germany in 1998. That particular guessing game came to an end when the man who would one day coach the Scotland national team joined Bayer Leverkusen.
When Luis Fernandez took over at Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2000, he was another somebody destined for a different role. Fernandez had previously been the coach at Athletic Bilbao. The manager of Sunderland at the time, Peter Reid, also threw in his hat.
Before Wim Jansen was appointed, John Toshack was connected to Celtic. He had recently settled a contract dispute with Real Madrid and was leaving for Saint Etienne.
Mick McCarthy, the Republic of Ireland manager and a former center-half who was part of Billy McNeill’s centennial double-winning team, seemed keen to come back to Parkhead.
Born in Dublin Due to his friendship with majority shareholder Dermot Desmond, Joe Kinnear, who had left Wimbledon the year before, was also rumored to be a contender. Although he was mostly content with Leicester City in the English premier league, Martin O’Neill fit into the same category.
The names were flying out of the mouth. The most intriguing was the one involving Romanian Angel Iordanescu, who was about to leave the Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal.
The overwhelming favorite, however, was Guus Hiddink, who was about to finish his contract with Real Betis. At one point, it seemed inevitable that the former Holland international coach would win the job. He had previously managed Real Madrid from July 1998 to February 1999.
Chief Executive Frank O’Callaghan and Allan MacDonald took a plane to Spain to hold negotiations with the 53-year-old Dutchman, who would become a free agent in June.
Hiddink said that he had only met the Celtic group “out of politeness.” Additionally, he met with Tommy Burns, and it was clear that some ground rules were being established.
The highly regarded coach was also contacted by Jim Hone, the club’s contracts manager, and a £1.4 million yearly wage was reported in the press. When the coach’s contract with Betis was abruptly ended in May with the team in danger of relegation, things were moving quickly.
It would seem that nothing stood in the way of Guus Hiddink becoming the thirteenth manager of Celtic Football Club on a full-time basis.
didn’t quite go as planned. Nobody was taken aback. Back then, things at Parkhead hardly happened.