Manchester United Manager Louis van Gaal is known for his big personality and authoritarian leadership style. It takes a big ego and a big personality to be the boss at a giant club like United and make no mistake Van Gaal is the “boss.” The Dutchman’s my-way-or-the-highway managerial approach has earned him the nickname “Iron Tulip.”
How Van Gaal chooses to lead his team behind closed doors is the business of the club, but “King Louis” doesn’t exactly hide his brash, confrontational personality at media sessions.
He often gets surly and condescending with the reporter conducting his one-on-one post match interviews. Reporters who ask him a question that he doesn’t like get put on notice. Media members who ask him stupid questions often get embarrassed by Van Gaal too.
So it goes with his roster too.
Managers and players not getting along is commonplace in football. Of course, players feel mistreated when they’re benched or sent away. Some of these players voice their disgust and disappointment. We now have a handful of former United players who have expressing their negative impressions of Van Gaal. If the Victor Valdes sale had gone through, you would likely be able to include him on this list.
His transfer to Paris St. Germain was ugly and protracted. When you’re jettisoning the most expensive signing in British football history, there’s bound to be tension. Especially so when the player leaves after just one year, and didn’t come even remotely close to producing in line with the £59.7 million price tag. There was obviously tension between Van Gaal and Di Maria, and you can reason that it had a tremendous impact on why the Argentine winger decided to leave for PSG.
An excerpt of Di Maria’s interview with ESPN Radio Argentina, via ESPN FC earlier this week:
“Van Gaal has his philosophy and one of the things that made me want to leave is that.”
“It is difficult to adapt to Van Gaal. I had a couple of rows with him.”
“I started well [at United] and after that I got injured. Things didn’t go well for me and Van Gaal changed my position. I spoke with [Laurent] Blanc and his thinking was that I’d play in a similar position to where I did at Real Madrid.”
Van Gaal just never seemed to perceive Chicharito as being part of his plan. Hernandez was sent out on loan to Real Madrid for Van Gaal’s first season. This week he was sold off to the Bundesliga, and he had this to say:
“I want to go back to feeling important and happy. I want to find happiness. Bayer Leverkusen made me feel important and loved and coming here was not a difficult decision to make.:
“They made me feel wanted.”
Mexican football legend Hugo Sanchez even called Van Gaal “a scoundrel” for how he treated Chicharito during the recent 4-0 win over Club Brugge in the Champions League playoff.
Of the three players on this list, the falling out with RVP is the most puzzling. The two men were more than co-workers. They were countrymen and friends. It seemed like they were getting along so well just last summer at the World Cup.
‘I asked to play in the reserves, to get my minutes, but after was on the bench again,’ Van Persie said in the Sunday Times in mid July. ‘The atmosphere changed between me and Louis [van Gaal] and people at the club saw it, but I was always professional.
‘I was still thinking we could come back from holiday and start from scratch, but when I came back it wasn’t an honest battle any more. Fighting to get back in the team wasn’t given to me as an option.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 the Zone.
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