Arrogance leads to fall Van Gaal

April 17th, 2011 | by: Jan |

gaal

Louis van Gaal has quite a history of leaving clubs. His first exit at Ajax, his first real coaching job, was a normal one, but at Barca he never really clicked, with Oranje he left with a Mike Myers penned script while he got into another sh-mozzle when he left at Ajax the second time.

A normal exit through the main gate wasn’t in the cards for Van Gaal in Munich. Last year, he was an untouchable in Bavaria. The status appeared to be brittle. “Mia san mia and I am me. Selfconscious, arrogant, honest and innovative. But I’m also warm and approachable. This Bayern culture fits me like a glove.” These were his first words when he presented him self in Germany in the summer of 2009.

Van Gaal came to Bayern, taking Edson Braafheid and Arjen Robben with him. In his staff, he had Andries Jonker ( the former Volendam coach and his former assistant at Barcelona) with him and an athletics coach and video analysts.

After his first season, Van Gaal is geil. He own the title, the Bundespokal and he reached the CL finals. The coach is revered and adored. The edgy side of his personality stays in the background and the self-monikered party-man is The Man. Club and Coach in a perfect marriage.

After the summer, in his second season, some agitation surfaces. Van Gaal’s biography is presented in October 2010 and when Van Gaal presents it, he looks at Uli Hoeness and Kalle Rummenigge and says: “It’s important you read this book too!”.

The duo, not without any knowledge of football and with a wish to be consulted in football matters, see the storm cloud coming. In particular Hoeness starts to comment on Van Gaal’s shenanigans in the media. He blames Van Gaal for not wanting to open up for debate.

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Jonker: “I actually saw it! Louis’ ego was actually this big!”

The conflicts are discussed and the hatched buried, but not deep enough. President Hoeness decides to bite his tongue but is steaming inside. During the course of Louis’ second season Uli finds more and more reason to question his coach. Instead of “mia san mia” ( we are who we are) it’s more like “I am who I am, and if you don’t like it you can go fukc yourself”.

Mark van Bommel was pushed out of the club in winter and it’s actually unclear what happened between the coach and the skipper. Some people believe it has to do with the Oranje situation, when the Bayern management put pressure on Van Bommel and the skipper expected his coach to support him ( as a former Oranje team manager would). But Van Gaal kept his mouth shut and Van Bommel may have responded a bit too snotty to his coach.

In March, Van Gaal’s authority will be undermined when both parties feel that there is too much conflict in vision towards the future and they decide to call it a day in the coming summer. The coach is a lame duck. A leader without authority.

The players publically supported their coach, but one regular started said anonymously “the coach and I are in war”.

The lack of results does the rest. The coach’ future is decided on Saturday after a disappointing 1-1 against Nurnberg.

Andries Jonker, Louis’ assistant, was asked to take over from Van Gaal to finish the season. Jonker, apparently, is popular amongst the players and impressed the management with a passionate presentation when Van Gaal was gone.

Some analysts in Holland, among them Gerard van der Lem ( Louis van Gaal’s assistant coach at Ajax) criticized the former Volendam and Willem II coach: “It’s very German to pick the job up after your first coach is sacked. He will fit well there. He should have walked too of course. Who does Jonker think he is?”

Others: “Jonker was a fluke at Volendam and Willem II. He’s probably a loyal assistant – or he was – but he doesn’t belong there. He’s probably fit to coach the Bayern Munich amateurs.”

And ironically, it was a mistake by goalie Thomas Kraft who sealed the deal for Van Gaal. The goalie was picked as first goalie by Van Gaal, much to the discontent of the Bayern management. “With Kraft in the goal all our drama started,” Hoeness sighed.

“The fun had left this club, so time ago, if you look at it closely, you’ll see that pure fear was leading Van Gaal.” It seemed Van Gaal was to arrogant and headstrong for Hoeness and co.

louis andries
Andries: “Papa Louis, can I point somewhere when the camera men come in? And will you please look in surprise, as if I saw something too??”

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Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 148 comments.

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By Tiju | April 21st, 2011 at 7:07 am

@Goose davids is love-hate guy,i like davids over seadorf as footballer.normally i dont support peoples who speak in diplomatic way…but seadorf is wise footballer and a wise human being.
its true that seadorf played with three clubs and won 4 CLs.But i rate it as total team effort,i mean
with ajax he had cluivert,Davids,Deboers and overmars.
With Mdrid he had fernando redendo,Carembu,morients,roberto carlos and fernando heiro.
With Ac milan he had Great Maldini,nesta,gattsso,Pirlo and most importantly kaka and dida.
So he had a balance team always.he was lucky to be part of those teams and it applies to every those players

By Harold | April 21st, 2011 at 7:37 am

Yeah Miguel… After doing my analysis Arsenal will win the league. And Arsenals predicament hasnt been Wenger but the players themselves

By Finnster01 | April 21st, 2011 at 8:14 am

@Ferenc: I know you are disappointed today, but you must take solace in the fact that Ramos dropped the cup and the bus ran over it.

You’ll get a smile watching the video. Apparently the cup was in 10 pieces!!: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/13155619.stm

By Bart | April 21st, 2011 at 9:38 am

Goose, really? I had no idea. I tried to google if Cruyff ever got knighted several times. I guess Dutch news isn’t very easy to find unless you know the exact key words. haha. But you’re right, I did just find one article from long ago. I guess I have a little less of an objection to Seedorf being knighted now.

Posted from Canada

By Miguel Rosado | April 21st, 2011 at 10:05 am

I hope you are right Harold

Last night’s Clasico was great. I am really looking forword to the semis of the UCL I want Madrid to win.

I know Madrid fired our Dutchies but Mourinho helped Sneijder!!!

By Miguel Rosado | April 21st, 2011 at 10:12 am

By the way I feel really sorry for Van Gaal. He is one of my favorite coaches I don’t know exactly what happened but it’s a shame he did a wonderful job with Bayern and I’d love to see him in charge of an important team next season.

By ferenc | April 21st, 2011 at 12:36 pm

Finn: so tyoical ramos… and yes,i’m disapointed,but i feel vengence – this bastard twice eliminated barca in the cl – first with chelsea in 2005 and last year. but the year after (2006) we eliminated them and history should repeat. without mou barca would have won 2 more cls,or at least one for sure (last year). i really hate this guy,and for the cl i will drink blood and want revenge and to see mou crying and humiliated. he might be brilliant,but he kills football,and he has to try something because his tactics was good for a home draw (1-1) and another draw in 90 mns – with these two results barca would be qualified for the cl final. i’ll become mad for the 2 semis and don’t want to see any madrid fan around me (i have some madridista friends,but try to avoid them in the coming 2 weeks) hopefully we’ll dive and provoke them enough to get pepe redcarded and ramos getting his yellow (and automatic suspension). if c. ronaldo got a yellow in madrid he would miss the other semis. one more thing: affelay should start instead of out-of-form villa. he’s the only one barca player who shoots from distance – i’m sure in 1 year he won’t,but now we should profit to his shooting abilities. and puyol will be back,too – yesterday we sorely missed him…
i’m still disappointed,but my anger is growing and growing,hopefully barca players fill the same (because yesterday and saturday i didn’t see the same motivation in their eyes as in real madrid players eyes – now they’ll be and have to be motivated like hell)
as johan cruyff said,mourinho is the killer of the beautiful game

Posted from Hungary

By danni | April 21st, 2011 at 2:10 pm

yesterday, vdVaart played with wilshere like a toy,omg

By bruce | April 21st, 2011 at 3:46 pm

same aas Vorm, Vermeer got very fast reaction, and do lots of fine save…..but his positioning is quit bad, that always cause him some troubles and forces him to do some hard save as actually he could catch the ball easily if his position is right.
Vorm is good, but he cant catch high ball, he need to improve it. krul got talents, he can be big…
these 3 are the only candidates as no.2 goalie at the moment, if would chooe Krul, as he is better in average

By Jan | April 21st, 2011 at 5:26 pm

Apologies for the lack of articles. One coming up soon.

Van der Vaart was great eh?

And yes, JC is knighted but it’s not like in the UK where they become Sir. Here, it’s basically a piece of paper. Clarence is knighted for his charity work as well. He does massive charity and community projects in Suriname, former Dutch colony.

By Jan | April 21st, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Arsenal needs a new goalie, but so does Spurs.

The Arsenal goalie was actually very good and courageous. Gomes is a fluke. Van Persie scored an offside goal that he tried to handbag away, the sissy.

I like Gomes as a person but as an athlete he’s a total sissy. With a better goalie, the Nasri goal wouldn’t be a goal and I didn’t like him on the Walcott goal either.

If Redknapp can get some better strikers ( Crouch and Pav were lame) and a great goalie Spurs can develop greatly.

Wenger needs to go. It’s pathetic. They were 1-3 up and they kept opening up and going end to end. As a neutral fan, I LOVED IT, but any Arsenal fan should puke at the thought. You have Walcott up front, play on the counter and kill the game!

By Robbert | April 21st, 2011 at 6:11 pm

Man u goes for De Gea and Bayern goes for Neuer. Are all the European top clubs asleep? Take Stekelenburg for half the prize and you will have the best goalkeeper in the world after VDS

Posted from Netherlands

By Carlos | April 21st, 2011 at 7:19 pm

In this case I didnt think the Arsenal keeper Wojvyxzkyqwerty wasn’t too bad. he is still very young and he is very courageous.But he’s not Stekelenburg and I rate Vermeer above him too. 2 Solid CB is what Arsenal needs and a Strong Leader that speaks loud and instills courage in Defence. Like Tony Adams.
Thot RM were very poor in fouling so many Barca players. Like Ferenc said….no fire in Barca eyes. Watch them annhialate RM on Wed.

Posted from Singapore

By van den Berg | April 21st, 2011 at 10:04 pm

Just watched the spurs arsenal game.

I won’t complain about arsenal, i have done that before, and much of what I feel has been covered already here.

But… how about Raf? @ danni – totally agree with you. He had little Jackie in his back pocket. Wilshere has alot of potential, but van der Vaart showed him how to play yesterday.

By van den Berg | April 21st, 2011 at 10:05 pm

And Carlos, its spelled Woghsalslczcxczyyxmnvoisay.

By OranjeFan | April 21st, 2011 at 10:24 pm

@danni
Arsenal vs Tottenham
http://www.fileserve.com/file/umJebZR/1st Half.avi
http://www.fileserve.com/file/neSH6Pr/2nd%20Half.avi

OJF

By Finnster01 | April 22nd, 2011 at 2:40 am

I wonder how many points in Scrabble you would score for that Polish keeper?

Speaking of strange footballer names there is player called David Goodwillie who currently plays for Dundee United. Milan Fukal was a Czech international in the early 2000’s. Bongo Christ played for years in Germany and if I am not mistaken Oranje had a player in WC1966 called Johan De Kock… Maybe worth another installment in the where are they now series Jan?

By Alex | April 22nd, 2011 at 6:49 am

Wojciech Tomasz Szczęsny = WTF, can these poles not just think of simple names XD whatever happened to the name Dudek… aaaaah lol

Posted from Netherlands

By danni | April 22nd, 2011 at 11:12 am

OJF Thanks

btw, nice game tonight, ADO vs Twente, ado win i guess

By Jason | April 22nd, 2011 at 12:04 pm

There is no way Twente will let it slip against Ado, at least I hope not -I have $5 on Twente!

Wouldn’t it be great if Huntelaar goes back to Ajax? It’ll likley never happen but it would be great as a reminder to all up and coming starts that it the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

Posted from Canada

By Jason | April 22nd, 2011 at 2:33 pm

I think i made the wrong bet, ADO has been much stronger. It will be nice if they get european football next year. Goose you must be loving this!

Posted from Canada

By eric | April 22nd, 2011 at 3:33 pm

LUUK DE JONG!!! 2-1, Twente. Thriller.

Posted from United States

By danni | April 22nd, 2011 at 3:48 pm

Twente is a lucky team, ADO was totally superior tonight, I never seen one team with so much lucky as Twente, completaly dominated by the oponent and a few minuts of the final score a lucky goal. it’s the same story of last year. I have no doubts, Twente will be the champion…

… I like Luuk de Jong, but, I think he’s better as midfielder instead a classic striker…

By Jalepinho | April 22nd, 2011 at 3:49 pm

Boo game over Twente wins..but man, twente can’t defend long balls for beans!

and how bout those neck ties the ADO management were wearing…

i’m hoping Feyenoord and Ajax wins this sunday. the title race getting real exciting…

By Jalepinho | April 22nd, 2011 at 4:43 pm

Dutch legend Wiel Coerver passes away

http://www.goal.com/en/news/462/netherlands/2011/04/22/2453773/dutch-legend-wiel-coerver-passes-away

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