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Hiddink eyes return to Russia

Moscow - Dutch coaching legend Guus Hiddink is set to make his return to Russia as either the technical director or consultant of the league's big spenders Anzhi Makhachkala, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Hiddink is revered in Russia as the manager who led the national squad to their best performance in decades when they took their attacking football to the semi-finals of the Euro 2008 championship.

He most recently coached Turkey and was dismissed from his post in November after they fell to Croatia in the Euro 2012 qualifying playoffs.

Hiddink's agent Kees van Nieuwenhuizen said on Wednesday that the Dutchman was considering six different coaching offers and would not announce his decision until next month.

But Moscow's respected Sovetsky Sport daily said Hiddink's options were in fact more limited and that he would be returning to the Dutch Eredivisie if he failed to agree to terms with Anzhi.

"The number (of offers) mentioned by Nieuwenhuizen are not true," the paper wrote quoting unnamed sources.

The report said that Anzhi would announce Russia's second squad coach Yury Krasnozhan as its new manager later on Thursday. Hiddink had also been linked with the post.

"It is possible that Hiddink will be consultant or technical director," it said.

Anzhi had little success in Russian football until being acquired by the Suleyman Kerimov this year and going on a spending spree that landed them Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto'o and Brazilian veteran Roberto Carlos.

The team qualified for the second stage of the Russian Premier League and currently sit in seventh place and five points off a European league qualifying spot.

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