Guus Hiddink Turns 80 as Park Ji-sung and Kim Min-ji Send Wishes

Guus Hiddink, the coach who led South Korea to the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup, has turned 80. Former national team star Park Ji-sung, one of the key players on that team, joined his wife, Kim Min-ji, in celebrating the milestone.

On Nov. 11, Kim Min-ji posted a photo of herself with Park and Hiddink on social media. The three stand side by side in the photo, smiling brightly. She opened the post with a simple question: "What were you doing during the 2002 World Cup?"

In her post, she looked back at the tournament that swept across South Korea 24 years ago. For Koreans, she said, those few words carry a special power.

"If you're Korean and old enough, you know we have a magic sentence," she wrote. "No matter where or how we met, it lets us talk excitedly for an hour."

She described what happens when the topic comes up. "When Koreans are gathered and someone brings up the 2002 World Cup, there's no way around it, even if the timing is a little random, even if it's someone who usually doesn't talk about themselves," she wrote. "Suddenly the mood turns into a round of 'I Am Ground,' and everyone has to take a turn and tell their own story." I Am Ground is a Korean group game in which players speak in turn.

Everyone who lived through that summer has different memories, she noted. But the feeling is the same.

"Everyone told a different story, but at those words, we all nod with the same smiling face," she wrote. "'Right. We were all crazy back then.'"

She also made her respect for Hiddink clear. "He gave so many people a special experience they had never had before and will hardly have again, along with a sense of unity," she wrote. "I can't say for sure, but even counting Grandpa Dangun and Grandpa Santa, wouldn't he be in the top 10 in South Korea?" Dangun is the legendary founder of the Korean nation.

"Happy 80th birthday, Coach Hiddink," she added. "Please stay healthy."

The photo itself carried a message too: "Coach Hiddink, happy 80th birthday. From South Korea, we send our endless gratitude."

At the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, Hiddink guided the Korean national team to its first-ever World Cup semifinal. Park played under him and was part of that historic run. Their bond carried on after the tournament and continues 24 years later.

Park married Kim Min-ji, a former announcer at the Korean broadcaster SBS, in 2014. The couple has a son and a daughter.

More than two decades on, the 2002 World Cup is still something Koreans can talk about with almost anyone. A birthday photo of three smiling people was enough to show how much that summer, and the coach behind it, still means to the country.