The 10 greatest club managers of our time: Louis van Gaal

The World Cup aside, winning the Champions League is probably the greatest summit one can claim to have scaled in the world of football. Those who win it are lavished with honours, airbrushed onto the covers of magazines, splashed on to the front pages of newspapers with headlines screaming their achievements to the world, featured on…you get the drift.

The feat becomes grander when achieved with an unheralded club.

In 1995, Louis van Gaal led Dutch club AFC Ajax Amsterdam to glory in Europe’s premier club competition, beating Italian giants AC Milan in the final. The Rossoneri have won the maximum number of European Cup titles after Real Madrid, but this victory over Milan was no flash in the pan.

The Dutchman had led the capital club to victories in the Eredivisie (Dutch Premier League) for three consecutive seasons: 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1995-96. He’d also go on to win the Johan Cruyff Shield in those seasons. This was preceded by the Dutch Cup (1992-93) and the UEFA Cup (1991-92) during his first season with the Club named after the mythical Greek hero.

Indeed, 1991-97 was van Gaal’s most successful period of his still-to-be-concluded managerial career. To his Champions League exploits in 1995, he added the UEFA Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup (now known as the Club World Cup) all while going on to win yet another domestic league title.

He went to Barcelona in 1997 – taking over from Bryan Robson – winning two consecutive La Liga titles and a Spanish Cup. He then managed his country’s national team, but the Netherlands failed to qualify for Korea-Japan 2002, which meant he stepped down as coach of the Oranje in 2002. A short stint at Barcelona was then followed by a return to Ajax as technical director.

He went to AZ Alkmaar as coach. In the four years spent at AZ, he won the league title once (2008-09), finished third once (2005-06) and reached the final of the Dutch Cup in 2007, losing 8-7 on penalties to his former team, Ajax. He then moved to what he called his ‘dream club’, Bayern Munich. There he won the German Bundesliga in his first season in 2010, making him the first Dutch coach to win the German League. They also reached the final of the Champions League, losing 0-2 to Inter Milan, but they did win the German Cup.

His second season however, was marred by infighting and a failure to build on his debut season. The man who’d been awarded the Manager of the Year Award by the Deutscher Fussball Bund was sacked even before the end of his second season after the Bavarians failed to hold on to third place.

After a year’s hiatus from management, the 61-year-old returned to the fold, and is now at the helm of the Netherlands national football team once again, with the aim of qualifying for Brazil 2014.

In the 22 years that van Gaal has been in management, he has won an incredible 19 (yes, nineteen) titles with the clubs he has managed; a proponent of attacking football, he was schooled in the art of Total Football during his time at Ajax, where he was assistant to Leo Beenhakker, taking up the mantle in 1986 before succeeding to the throne when the Pole left a few years later.

He was even the man sought by Manchester United when Sir Alex Ferguson had planned to call it quits after a highly successful career which has seen him become one of the most successful managers of the modern era. In an interview in 2002, while he was managing the Netherlands, he told the Guardian:

 

“I knew I was first on the list last year.

“I don’t have any contact with them now because I am coach of the national team but I can imagine that a club like Manchester United are still interested in Louis van Gaal.”

The news at the time had prompted a slew of bets on British betting website Blue Square Bet, which prompted them to suspend all punts and close the market on who would succeed Sir Alex at the Theatre of Dreams.

Sir Alex has since, as we all know, performed a U-turn on his retirement decision and is still very much the main man at Old Trafford.

But throughout his managerial career, he has courted controversy. His style of play requires getting used to, with results usually coming in the second or third year of his tenure at clubs, the exception to this being Bayern Munich. His players, however, have more often than not found the coaching methods of the self-styled prozesstrainer (which means his teams need time to adapt to his playing style) rather overbearing.

ISTANBUL – 24 SEPTEMBER: Barcelona coach Louis Van Gaal during the UEFA Champions League First Phase Group H match between Galatasaray and Barcelona at the Ali Sami Yen Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey on September 24, 2002.

At Barcelona, for example, he wanted legendary Brazilian attacker Rivaldo to play on the wings. Rivaldo insisted he wanted to play in the centre, a situation similar to Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola when Messi asked to be shifted to the centre from out on the wings. Rivaldo was thereby undermining van Gaal.

The Dutchman didn’t care though. He showed who was boss by benching the 2002 World Cup winner. This action not only courted disdain from Barcelona’s board, but also from Spanish and world media. The relationship between van Gaal and his detractors was always rocky, and after failing to accomplish what the board had set out for him – winning the Champions League – he resigned. In typically van Gaal fashion, he launched a withering attack on the press, uttering a phrase that is now the stuff of legend, insinuating that they had forced him out of Catalonia:

“Friends of the press. I am leaving. Congratulations.”

It was the same in Munich. Yet another World Cup winner in Luca Toni was about to see just what happened when one crossed van Gaal. The Italian had been instrumental in the Germans’ League and Cup double, but the Dutchman felt he had been under-performing. To underline the fact that he was boss, he did what no one would expect of a manager.

He dropped his pants in front of Toni. Toni then moved back to Italy with AS Roma. One can see why he was keen on leaving Germany now.

MADRID, SPAIN – OCTOBER 16: Frank Ribery (R) of France celebrates with Mathieu Debuchy after France drew 1-1 against Spain during the FIFA 2014 World Cup Qualifier between Spain and France at estadio Vicente Calderon on October 16, 2012 in Madrid, Spain.

Franck Ribery, another of Bayern’s world-class talents, never really shone under van Gaal because of the way the Dutchman imposed himself on the team. He said:

“I haven’t had fun on the pitch once under van Gaal. I had had more than enough of it.”

And there were others who were not afraid of speaking out against the Dutchman. Sweden international Zlatan Ibrahimovic did not shy away from giving him a piece of his mind. Van Gaal was present at Ajax while Ibrahimovic was a player there, and Ibra recalls an incident from the Dutch side’s pre-season training in Portugal.  From his autobiography,

As a player he was nothing special, but in Holland he had a high status because he had won the Champions League with Ajax as coach and was knighted by the government for it.

He was one of those in the club who talked about the players as numbers. It was a lot of the five goes here and the six there and I was happy when I didn’t have to see him.

I was going to meet up with van Gaal and Koeman and listen to what they thought of my first part of the season. It was one of those meetings with grades that they loved in Ajax and I went to their room, sat in front of van Gaal and Ronald Koeman. Koeman smiled. van Gaal looked angry.

“Van Basten told be that the number nine should save his energy for attacking and scoring goals, and honestly, now I don’t know who I should listen to. van Basten who’s a legend or van Gaal?” I said and I especially marked the words van Gaal, like he was some insignificant person, and what do you think? Did van Gaal become happy?”

Despite his flaws, van Gaal makes no qualms about who he is. He once said, “In the Netherlands, being arrogant just means having a lot of self-confidence,” and during his first press conference with Bayern, went on record to the press with “The Bavarian attitude to life suits me perfectly. Why? [Bayern Munich's club motto is] ‘Mia san mia,’ ‘We are who we are’ and I am who I am: confident, arrogant, dominant, honest, hard-working and innovative.”

For a man who’s has blasted the press as being too stupid, the reason van Gaal is so sought after as a coach is because he bring success to whichever club he is at. Few managers can claim they have the Champions League. Patrick Kluivert’s 85th minute goal at the Ernst-Happel Stadium in Vienna means he can; after going through the entire campaign unbeaten. He is also known for blooding youth players through the team’s ranks. David Alaba, Holger Badstuber and Thomas Muller were inculcated into the Bayern set up when he was in charge, and are now key players on Die Roten’s team sheet.

Love him or hate him, there is no doubt that van Gaal is one of the most successful managers of the modern era. The tangible aside, van Gaal’s prodigy – at the time a young Portuguese tactician learning the books at Barcelona – is now ‘the only one’ to have won trophies in Italy, England and Spain.

We know him as Jose Murinho .

Who else made it to the list? Find out here: Top 10 managers