adminManchester United’s players have been getting to know new boss Louis van Gaal and will be getting familiar with his personality and some of his managerial traits.
Here, Sportsmail has exclusive extracts from Maarten Meijer’s explosive new book on the Dutchman which lifts the lid on the new man in charge at Old Trafford.
They call Louis van Gaal “The Iron Tulip”, a moniker that exquisitely sums up his essential Dutch stubbornness.
The tall, proud figure who is about to take charge of Manchester United believes that the coach is in charge. He will lead with the right state of mind and expects players to follow suit.
Training is not just about acquiring tactical skills, but also the mental framework that will underline them.
He’s always been the same: it was this mentality that brought his success and not the other way round. His first big job as head coach of Dutch giants Ajax came in September 1991, a shock appointment when Leo Beenhakker went to Real Madrid, and the club chose their former youth coach despite a campaign for the return of legend Johan Cruyff.
“I sat in my car and suddenly I realised ‘I am technical director of Ajax’. I began sweating profusely,” Van Gaal revealed in an interview with, of all magazines, Playboy.
“That feeling lasted for only one minute. Afterwards I never again had that feeling.”
Certainly his players learned in no time that their new manager wouldn’t tolerate anybody who broke the rules. If anybody arrived just a minute late for training, Van Gaal the disciplinarian fined them. If it happened again it was doubled. A third time and it was doubled again.
Van Gaal would get irritated over players not putting used towels in the laundry basket in the dressing room. If someone threw his towel elsewhere he could take it home and wash it himself.
Another hallmark was that everyone, including the superstars, would lug around the giant cases of equipment and not just the kit man or reserves.
Discipline was everything. At Press conferences the players invariably appeared in the stiff club suit, with matching tie and shoes. The jacket had to be buttoned up.
He fell out with Jan Wouters, the 33-year-old veteran who had been the star of central midfield since Cruyff signed him in 1986; he fell out with Bryan Roy, humiliating the fleet-footed winger in training sessions; he sidelined Johnny van’t Schip, who had been part of the furniture for a decade, by moving him to the right wing until the striker announced he no longer wanted to play there.
It wasn’t an instant success. Van Gaal’s Ajax managed just 20 points out of the first 16 games, the supporters lost confidence and calls from the stands for Cruyff to return were mixed with those for Van Gaal to go.
His reaction? “I will not change my attitude,” he said.
His confidence was proved right. By the end of his first season Ajax had won the UEFA Cup. A bright new team of young players, who had emerged through the system when Van Gaal was their youth coach, had begun to take shape.
Players who had learned under his wing such as Patrick Kluivert, Marc Overmars, Edgar Davids and Edwin van der Sar went on to win the Champions League in 1995, only failing to retain the trophy when Juventus beat them on penalties a year later.
With Van Gaal, there are no half measures. People tend to be grouped by him as either friends or enemies.
His second wife Truus once worked as a PR manager and so can offer him help on polishing his image, but he is neither bothered nor interested. — Daily Mail.
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