Just a month before he would win the Eredivisie with AZ, I sat down with Louis van Gaal in the DSB Stadium in Alkmaar to look back on his career as a coach. Over the summer he moved to Bayern Munich.
He won the UEFA Cup in his first full year as headcoach, but Europe might never have heard of Louis van Gaal if Dennis Bergkamp had not scored on a novembernight in Spain. But he did, and the eloquent and righteous former prizeless midfieldplayer became a serial titlewinning manager, who likes to work only at the very top. Next season he is back in the Champions League as the coach of Bayern Munich.
Punctually at four o’clock, just as arranged, Louis van Gaal welcomes me in the inner sanctum of the DSB Stadium. His unassuming office overlooks the perfectly manicured pitch and the stands around them. On the wall behind his desk framed pictures remember of his successes as a coach. They show him with the UEFA Cup in 1992, with the three salad dishes that embody the Dutch title and holding the Champions League trophy in 1995, all conquered with Ajax. Twice he won La Liga with Barcelona.
Ajax - 1991-97
“Only three months after I started as a head coach of Ajax my head was already on the block”, Van Gaal reminisces about his start on the bench. In the early nineties, Ajax were a club in transition. New chairman Michael van Praag had counted on Leo Beenhakker to bring long-term stability after his appointment in 1989. However, after two months into the 1991-92 season Don Leo suddenly went to Real Madrid to replace Radomir Antic. A furious Van Praag felt he had been stabbed in the back as his plans fell to pieces. With no other alternative in site, the board asked the assistant-coach to take over. Their confidence in Louis van Gaal, as it was he, was not shared by the Ajax entourage, who had someone else in mind.
“My appointment was not very well received”, Van Gaal remembers vividly. “Not by the press nor by the public. My first game was away at Örebrö in the UEFA Cup. I fielded only two strikers, which flew in the face of everything Ajax stands for, but we won 0-1 and went through.”
In his first home game in the league, against Sparta Rotterdam, Ajax played a poor first half. In the stands punters started shouting ‘Johan Cruyff, Johan Cruyff’ . Some shrewd substitutions turned the game into a 4-0 win, which silenced the crowd for some time. Yet when the team started to struggle in the league after some goalkeepers’ errors and Ajax lost to Feyenoord in Rotterdam, the call for the then Barcelona-trainer became greater and greater. Chairman Van Praag admitted he had booked a flight to the Catalan city. Few believed his claim that he was going for fun.
“We then played Osasuna away in the third round of the UEFA Cup. Should we have lost there, than I believe it would have been the end for me. There were some influential hacks campaigning for Cruyff , on tv and in De Telegraaf, the biggest newspaper, which heated up the public. I had even noticed a split in my squad: some were for and others against me. In Pamplona I therefore decided to start with the players who were on my side and came up with tactics especially for this game. Although he did not want to play there, Dennis Bergkamp came from the right flank to score the only goal of the game, which probably saved my career. And as long as we kept going in Europe I knew my job was save. At the end of the season we even won the UEFA Cup.”
The next season Ajax beat Heerenveen 6-2 in the final of the Dutch Cup. That year was dominated by the smooth partnership of Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp . In the summer the pair joined Internazionale and Van Gaal had to start anew. “That is something you know when you work at Ajax, even PSV and AZ as well after this victorious season. When you have a successful year, you are bound to lose your best players. They follow the money and travel abroad. That is why Dutch clubs need to have good youth academies. However, with Jari Litmanen, Finidi George, Nwanko Kanu and Marc Overmars we could replace Jonk and Bergkamp. Litmanen came to Amsterdam the year before as a right midfielder, but I recognized in him the qualities to play in Bergkamp’s position. So Jari played for a year in the reserves to learn, then came into the first team as a ‘number 10. He was outstanding in his time at Ajax, but never really made it at Barcelona or Liverpool. Of course he had several injuries, but outsiders also underestimate that his performances were highly influenced by the way we played. Now I hear how special the players of AZ are this season. Ha, no. It is the team that is special. When the players are taken away to different teams, countries, other teammates or coaches, they will not necessarily fit in as easily as one thinks. Sometimes the system in a team benefits the qualities of the individual. At AZ we therefore like to scout a player because we think he is useful in a specific position. Not because he plays well.”
In 1995 Ajax surprised the world by winning the Champions League in a final against AC Milan. “Well, I was not surprised. I have said that we could win it before the 1994-95 season started. Just as I refuse to believe that a Dutch club will never win the Champions League again, as some people claim. That is ridiculous! Obviously, money is influential, but in the end, it is the set-up of the club that counts. You need smooth interaction from top to bottom, from director to the groundsmen, and a clear long-term vision. You cannot buy that. Throwing big money at Manchester City has not brought them anything yet. It all starts with a decent structure in the club. If that is sound, you have a bigger chance to sustain success. I have the greatest respect for Liverpool and Manchester United. You can see the influence of the coach in the way they play. Sir Alex Ferguson as well as Rafael Benitez has his own style and they manage to implement their ideas onto the pitch. It is not easy to get top players to play the way you want them to. I am not very entertained by his defensive style, but I admire how Benitez makes his mark on the club. You can see that the team plays like he thinks it should be. And against Real Madrid they showed they can also play a pressure game. That was a pleasant surprise.”
Barcelona – 1997-99 and 2002-03
Around the turn of the century Louis van Gaal worked at such a big club himself. Twice even. He spent three years at Barcelona after leaving Ajax in 1997, then returned for eight months in the 2002-03 season. “The first period was the best as we won La Liga twice. The reason I left there in May 2000 was out of loyalty for the President (Nunez, EB), who came under attack by an opposition group called the l’ Elefant Blau of the current president Joan Laporte. Nunez asked me to resign to take some of the pressure of his back, so I did.”, he says now as if he just took his hat and walked out of the building. In fact, he quit with a memorable press conference about the peculiarities of the Spanish press. The highlights can still be found on You Tube. He refused to take the compensation fee for the remaining two years of his contract. In 2002 he returned, but that was short lived. “They promised I could spend money on transfers. It turned out there was not any, which was very disappointing for me as I could not do what I had in mind. Although we had a great run in the Champions League, with a record breaking nine consecutive wins, we did badly in the league which lead to my resignation in January.”
The Netherlands – 2000-november 2001
It was the second setback in rapid succession as Van Gaal had failed to qualify with the Dutch national team for the World Cup 2002 the year before. He had replaced Frank Rijkaard who had taken the team to the semi-final of the European Championships on home ground. There they missed two penalties in normal time and three in the shoot-out against Italy, although these had to play an hour with ten men after the dismissal of Zambrotta. Not reaching the tournament in the Far East was equally absurd. Ireland almost surprised them in Amsterdam (2-2), followed by a disastrous home defeat to Portugal (0-2) when only the Dutch players stopped in their tracks after a whistle from the crowd and the visitors had a free passage to score an early goal. At the return in Porto the Dutch team gave away a two-goal lead (2-2) in the closing minutes to finish the calamitous campaign in Dublin where a victory would have rescued their chances. Instead, the Irish scored the only goal although they were a man short in the last thirty minutes.
“That is my biggest disappointment. I really thought we had a squad that could win in the Far East. The interaction with my players, most of them I knew so well from the Ajax-days, never reached the level I had expected. They stood differently in the world at that time. There were also some unforeseen obstacles like the injury of Ruud van Nistelrooy and the drugbans of Jaap Stam, Edgar Davids and Frank de Boer. But in the end it all came down to the difference between me and the squad. I could not get them to do what I wanted and I am not the person to scale down to the level they wanted. I liked to use the few days for a qualifier to prepare the team profoundly, but that was very difficult. Not that I wanted to change so much but I need to have some rapport with the players. A bond, in which I can motivate them. Over the season there was no time to reach them. Maybe I should have changed my style, but I was not prepared to do so. I do believe that once I take any national squad to a tournament I’d be able to get the best out of them. Then time is on my side. I would love to experience it once. Colleagues tell me how great it is to work on a World Cup. However, I am only interested in taking a potential winner. I am a coach to win things and got to have a chance to get into the final. To try with a smaller nation and then hope to survive the group would not suit me.”
AZ – 2005-09
After a short spell as technical director of Ajax (marred by his differences with then coach Ronald Koeman), Louis van Gaal returned to the dugout in 2005 at AZ Alkmaar. There he took over from Co Adriaanse, who had propelled the club from a midtable position on the brink of the UEFA Cup final and the Champions League in just three seasons. Few people believed anyone, not even Van Gaal could do better, yet four years later, AZ won their first title in 28 year. “I took over an aging squad so I did not change much at first. Our football philosophy is not that different, while I knew Adriaanse is also a very strict organizer. During the first season I slowly managed to get my specific ideas through. That is not easy to do with older players. After that first year, in which we came fourth, I could start to built my own team. Those, who could not follow my directions were let go to be replaced by those who would. I always make sure to have a good talk before I sign anyone. For me the personality of the player is extremely important.”
As if preparing for the next season, Louis van Gaal has been a pundit at the Champions League nights this year on the Dutch channel Sport 1. “I was not particularly impressed with the level. My predications of the quarter finalists, based on my evaluation of the team performances, all came true. The losers all had good individual players but did not make good teams. The remaining eight were well organized. It is only than that the tournament starts. I am not a big fan of the current set-up as it clearly benefits the clubs with money. The group stage was only created to prevent the bigger teams from dropping out early. Money rules over sport and fairness. A game has to be a challenge, but now the big clubs can still wipe out one or two mistakes in the early stages. As a sports fan I don’t like that. I prefer the old setup with only champions and knock-out rounds all the way.”
Being at it, Louis van Gaal also has an ax to grind about the lack of innovation in football. “As popular as it is and with so much money going around, I cannot believe we are still not able to use technical aids. We should strive for fair play and a level playing field for everyone. Look at other sports. They say it is the charm of the game to leave it to referee, but we are talking about a business with millions of euros depending on one decision. Why should not we use the opportunities we have. It might even increase the spectacle for the public, like Hawk-eye at tennis.
“We need transparency. Take off-side: when you talk about players being level to be on side, we still don’t know which body parts are meant. The arm, the head, a foot? It is a mystery. Recently one of our goals was ruled offside although the head of a player on the ground was closer to the goalline than our scorer. Apparently, that does not count. And don’t get me started on the new off-side rule, which is a disaster for a coach. It is was made up by people who don’t play football. Or, when in doubt keep your flag down, ha, I see assistent-referees rise their flags whenever they get the chance. Therefore, we need clearer rules and technical aids to help out. Maybe both linesmen should take a seat behind a television to judge off-side. Just as we should all have the same pitch. This year some grounds in our league were unplayable, while ours was perfect. Why don’t we all just convert to artificial pitches, all with the same measurements. Then the circumstances are the same wherever you go. That’s fair play.”
Although there is so much still to talk about, my time is up. As Van Gaal accompanies me on the way out, he does not mind giving me an extensive look at the new three-dimensional camera equipment in another room. As a kid with a fancy Christmas present he beams while explaining this technological gadget. At 58, he may be one of the oldest coaches in the Champions League next season, but Louis van Gaal is still ahead of his time.
Published in Issue 36 of Champions, the official magazine of the UEFA Champions League (augustus/september 2009).
He won the UEFA Cup in his first full year as headcoach, but Europe might never have heard of Louis van Gaal if Dennis Bergkamp had not scored on a novembernight in Spain. But he did, and the eloquent and righteous former prizeless midfieldplayer became a serial titlewinning manager, who likes to work only at the very top. Next season he is back in the Champions League as the coach of Bayern Munich.
Punctually at four o’clock, just as arranged, Louis van Gaal welcomes me in the inner sanctum of the DSB Stadium. His unassuming office overlooks the perfectly manicured pitch and the stands around them. On the wall behind his desk framed pictures remember of his successes as a coach. They show him with the UEFA Cup in 1992, with the three salad dishes that embody the Dutch title and holding the Champions League trophy in 1995, all conquered with Ajax. Twice he won La Liga with Barcelona.
Ajax - 1991-97
“Only three months after I started as a head coach of Ajax my head was already on the block”, Van Gaal reminisces about his start on the bench. In the early nineties, Ajax were a club in transition. New chairman Michael van Praag had counted on Leo Beenhakker to bring long-term stability after his appointment in 1989. However, after two months into the 1991-92 season Don Leo suddenly went to Real Madrid to replace Radomir Antic. A furious Van Praag felt he had been stabbed in the back as his plans fell to pieces. With no other alternative in site, the board asked the assistant-coach to take over. Their confidence in Louis van Gaal, as it was he, was not shared by the Ajax entourage, who had someone else in mind.
“My appointment was not very well received”, Van Gaal remembers vividly. “Not by the press nor by the public. My first game was away at Örebrö in the UEFA Cup. I fielded only two strikers, which flew in the face of everything Ajax stands for, but we won 0-1 and went through.”
In his first home game in the league, against Sparta Rotterdam, Ajax played a poor first half. In the stands punters started shouting ‘Johan Cruyff, Johan Cruyff’ . Some shrewd substitutions turned the game into a 4-0 win, which silenced the crowd for some time. Yet when the team started to struggle in the league after some goalkeepers’ errors and Ajax lost to Feyenoord in Rotterdam, the call for the then Barcelona-trainer became greater and greater. Chairman Van Praag admitted he had booked a flight to the Catalan city. Few believed his claim that he was going for fun.
“We then played Osasuna away in the third round of the UEFA Cup. Should we have lost there, than I believe it would have been the end for me. There were some influential hacks campaigning for Cruyff , on tv and in De Telegraaf, the biggest newspaper, which heated up the public. I had even noticed a split in my squad: some were for and others against me. In Pamplona I therefore decided to start with the players who were on my side and came up with tactics especially for this game. Although he did not want to play there, Dennis Bergkamp came from the right flank to score the only goal of the game, which probably saved my career. And as long as we kept going in Europe I knew my job was save. At the end of the season we even won the UEFA Cup.”
The next season Ajax beat Heerenveen 6-2 in the final of the Dutch Cup. That year was dominated by the smooth partnership of Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp . In the summer the pair joined Internazionale and Van Gaal had to start anew. “That is something you know when you work at Ajax, even PSV and AZ as well after this victorious season. When you have a successful year, you are bound to lose your best players. They follow the money and travel abroad. That is why Dutch clubs need to have good youth academies. However, with Jari Litmanen, Finidi George, Nwanko Kanu and Marc Overmars we could replace Jonk and Bergkamp. Litmanen came to Amsterdam the year before as a right midfielder, but I recognized in him the qualities to play in Bergkamp’s position. So Jari played for a year in the reserves to learn, then came into the first team as a ‘number 10. He was outstanding in his time at Ajax, but never really made it at Barcelona or Liverpool. Of course he had several injuries, but outsiders also underestimate that his performances were highly influenced by the way we played. Now I hear how special the players of AZ are this season. Ha, no. It is the team that is special. When the players are taken away to different teams, countries, other teammates or coaches, they will not necessarily fit in as easily as one thinks. Sometimes the system in a team benefits the qualities of the individual. At AZ we therefore like to scout a player because we think he is useful in a specific position. Not because he plays well.”
In 1995 Ajax surprised the world by winning the Champions League in a final against AC Milan. “Well, I was not surprised. I have said that we could win it before the 1994-95 season started. Just as I refuse to believe that a Dutch club will never win the Champions League again, as some people claim. That is ridiculous! Obviously, money is influential, but in the end, it is the set-up of the club that counts. You need smooth interaction from top to bottom, from director to the groundsmen, and a clear long-term vision. You cannot buy that. Throwing big money at Manchester City has not brought them anything yet. It all starts with a decent structure in the club. If that is sound, you have a bigger chance to sustain success. I have the greatest respect for Liverpool and Manchester United. You can see the influence of the coach in the way they play. Sir Alex Ferguson as well as Rafael Benitez has his own style and they manage to implement their ideas onto the pitch. It is not easy to get top players to play the way you want them to. I am not very entertained by his defensive style, but I admire how Benitez makes his mark on the club. You can see that the team plays like he thinks it should be. And against Real Madrid they showed they can also play a pressure game. That was a pleasant surprise.”
Barcelona – 1997-99 and 2002-03
Around the turn of the century Louis van Gaal worked at such a big club himself. Twice even. He spent three years at Barcelona after leaving Ajax in 1997, then returned for eight months in the 2002-03 season. “The first period was the best as we won La Liga twice. The reason I left there in May 2000 was out of loyalty for the President (Nunez, EB), who came under attack by an opposition group called the l’ Elefant Blau of the current president Joan Laporte. Nunez asked me to resign to take some of the pressure of his back, so I did.”, he says now as if he just took his hat and walked out of the building. In fact, he quit with a memorable press conference about the peculiarities of the Spanish press. The highlights can still be found on You Tube. He refused to take the compensation fee for the remaining two years of his contract. In 2002 he returned, but that was short lived. “They promised I could spend money on transfers. It turned out there was not any, which was very disappointing for me as I could not do what I had in mind. Although we had a great run in the Champions League, with a record breaking nine consecutive wins, we did badly in the league which lead to my resignation in January.”
The Netherlands – 2000-november 2001
It was the second setback in rapid succession as Van Gaal had failed to qualify with the Dutch national team for the World Cup 2002 the year before. He had replaced Frank Rijkaard who had taken the team to the semi-final of the European Championships on home ground. There they missed two penalties in normal time and three in the shoot-out against Italy, although these had to play an hour with ten men after the dismissal of Zambrotta. Not reaching the tournament in the Far East was equally absurd. Ireland almost surprised them in Amsterdam (2-2), followed by a disastrous home defeat to Portugal (0-2) when only the Dutch players stopped in their tracks after a whistle from the crowd and the visitors had a free passage to score an early goal. At the return in Porto the Dutch team gave away a two-goal lead (2-2) in the closing minutes to finish the calamitous campaign in Dublin where a victory would have rescued their chances. Instead, the Irish scored the only goal although they were a man short in the last thirty minutes.
“That is my biggest disappointment. I really thought we had a squad that could win in the Far East. The interaction with my players, most of them I knew so well from the Ajax-days, never reached the level I had expected. They stood differently in the world at that time. There were also some unforeseen obstacles like the injury of Ruud van Nistelrooy and the drugbans of Jaap Stam, Edgar Davids and Frank de Boer. But in the end it all came down to the difference between me and the squad. I could not get them to do what I wanted and I am not the person to scale down to the level they wanted. I liked to use the few days for a qualifier to prepare the team profoundly, but that was very difficult. Not that I wanted to change so much but I need to have some rapport with the players. A bond, in which I can motivate them. Over the season there was no time to reach them. Maybe I should have changed my style, but I was not prepared to do so. I do believe that once I take any national squad to a tournament I’d be able to get the best out of them. Then time is on my side. I would love to experience it once. Colleagues tell me how great it is to work on a World Cup. However, I am only interested in taking a potential winner. I am a coach to win things and got to have a chance to get into the final. To try with a smaller nation and then hope to survive the group would not suit me.”
AZ – 2005-09
After a short spell as technical director of Ajax (marred by his differences with then coach Ronald Koeman), Louis van Gaal returned to the dugout in 2005 at AZ Alkmaar. There he took over from Co Adriaanse, who had propelled the club from a midtable position on the brink of the UEFA Cup final and the Champions League in just three seasons. Few people believed anyone, not even Van Gaal could do better, yet four years later, AZ won their first title in 28 year. “I took over an aging squad so I did not change much at first. Our football philosophy is not that different, while I knew Adriaanse is also a very strict organizer. During the first season I slowly managed to get my specific ideas through. That is not easy to do with older players. After that first year, in which we came fourth, I could start to built my own team. Those, who could not follow my directions were let go to be replaced by those who would. I always make sure to have a good talk before I sign anyone. For me the personality of the player is extremely important.”
As if preparing for the next season, Louis van Gaal has been a pundit at the Champions League nights this year on the Dutch channel Sport 1. “I was not particularly impressed with the level. My predications of the quarter finalists, based on my evaluation of the team performances, all came true. The losers all had good individual players but did not make good teams. The remaining eight were well organized. It is only than that the tournament starts. I am not a big fan of the current set-up as it clearly benefits the clubs with money. The group stage was only created to prevent the bigger teams from dropping out early. Money rules over sport and fairness. A game has to be a challenge, but now the big clubs can still wipe out one or two mistakes in the early stages. As a sports fan I don’t like that. I prefer the old setup with only champions and knock-out rounds all the way.”
Being at it, Louis van Gaal also has an ax to grind about the lack of innovation in football. “As popular as it is and with so much money going around, I cannot believe we are still not able to use technical aids. We should strive for fair play and a level playing field for everyone. Look at other sports. They say it is the charm of the game to leave it to referee, but we are talking about a business with millions of euros depending on one decision. Why should not we use the opportunities we have. It might even increase the spectacle for the public, like Hawk-eye at tennis.
“We need transparency. Take off-side: when you talk about players being level to be on side, we still don’t know which body parts are meant. The arm, the head, a foot? It is a mystery. Recently one of our goals was ruled offside although the head of a player on the ground was closer to the goalline than our scorer. Apparently, that does not count. And don’t get me started on the new off-side rule, which is a disaster for a coach. It is was made up by people who don’t play football. Or, when in doubt keep your flag down, ha, I see assistent-referees rise their flags whenever they get the chance. Therefore, we need clearer rules and technical aids to help out. Maybe both linesmen should take a seat behind a television to judge off-side. Just as we should all have the same pitch. This year some grounds in our league were unplayable, while ours was perfect. Why don’t we all just convert to artificial pitches, all with the same measurements. Then the circumstances are the same wherever you go. That’s fair play.”
Although there is so much still to talk about, my time is up. As Van Gaal accompanies me on the way out, he does not mind giving me an extensive look at the new three-dimensional camera equipment in another room. As a kid with a fancy Christmas present he beams while explaining this technological gadget. At 58, he may be one of the oldest coaches in the Champions League next season, but Louis van Gaal is still ahead of his time.
Published in Issue 36 of Champions, the official magazine of the UEFA Champions League (augustus/september 2009).
