The question that was posed to
Louis van Gaal at the press conference earlier in the season seemed innocuous enough. The subject was Wesley Sneijder, who Van Gaal had recalled to the
Holland team and the manager was asked what he would do if the midfielder did the business in the World Cup qualifier against Estonia.
Van Gaal was in the throes of a characteristically passionate answer when he suddenly threw out his arms and bellowed into the microphone that
he would celebrate like this. It was one of those moments that took you aback and there were slightly nervous laughs from the floor. But nobody ought really to have been surprised because this, after all, is Van Gaal; the king of zaniness and over-the-top outpourings, not to mention latent hostility towards the media.
The incident made a mark in Holland; there were the obligatory house music remixes on YouTube and, in many ways, it provided a snapshot of the borderline craziness of the 62-year-old national team manager who is, by some distance, the most colourful and controversial character in Dutch football.
He is also the most in demand. Tottenham Hotspur have made
overtures towards him and
Manchester United have him under consideration to become the permanent successor to David Moyes,
who they sacked on Tuesday morning. Van Gaal is likely to have other options as he approaches the end of his contract with Holland – he becomes a free agent after the World Cup finals in Brazil – and he could be in a position to play some of them off against others.
The sense that he has been waiting for the Moyes Out development at Old Trafford has not endeared him at Tottenham. He
met with them last December before they appointed Tim Sherwood as André Villas-Boas's successor and he has remained
prominent in their thoughts as they prepare to make another change in the summer.
Van Gaal has made no secret of his desire to manage in the Premier League and he is also quite clear about where he sees his standing in the game. Having previously managed Ajax,
Barcelona and
Bayern Munich, he believes that he is a part of the very elite. If it were a choice between Manchester United and Tottenham, he would choose the former, and the knowledge of this might explain why some employees at White Hart Lane had started to pooh-pooh the idea of Van Gaal coming to them even before Moyes' dismissal.
Van Gaal is the subject of endless fascination and scrutiny, particularly in Holland, where a book about the complexities of his character was published last month. In 'O, Louis', the journalist Hugo Borst examines what makes Van Gaal such a special and unique person, why he is always fighting and, essentially, how he tiptoes the line between madness and genius.
Consider some of the ego-centric stories – most infamously, the pants-down motivational speech in the Bayern dressing-room, which feels apocryphal but is true – and the line appears blurred, to say the least.
In that scene, the angry Van Gaal disrobed in an attempt to make a point about why he substituted players, although confusion reigned. Luca Toni, Bayern's striker at the time, thought Van Gaal was suggesting ‚ "he had the balls" to drop anyone, yet the manager actually wanted to say that any substitutions were not for his ego but the sake of the team.
Van Gaal might be extreme in word and deed but his appeal has always been located in his tactical knowledge. His analysis is notoriously detailed and accurate and he sets up his teams both to play
attractive passing football and to win. He was influenced by Holland's total football of the 1970s, when he was a young midfielder making his way in the game but his managerial CV is embossed by trophies.
His time in charge of Ajax, between 1991-97,
was his most glorious, with three Eredivisie titles (including an unbeaten league season in 1995); the Uefa Cup in 1992 and the Champions League in 1995. He became a knight of the Dutch realm. He also won La Liga with Barcelona in 1998 and 1999; one more Eredivisie
with unfancied AZ Alkmaar in 2009 and the Bundesliga with Bayern in 2010.
Van Gaal wins players' respect through his vision and know-how, but he also works hard to build strong relationships; to be connected with them on a personal level. Players past and present talk of how he remembers their wives' birthdays and the names of their children while Van Gaal has described himself as a "relationships coach".
His methods have tended to work the best with young players or older ones who have remained open-minded and hungry. Van Gaal has struggled at times with those that have achieved star status and become more cynical. An example came in the qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup, in his first spell as the Holland manager, when he took over a squad that featured many of the players from his Champions League-winning Ajax team.
Back then, the likes of Frank and Ronald De Boer, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids and Patrick Kluivert were determined to make their names and they responded to Van Gaal. Years on and with reputations established, the relationship was not so productive. Egos collided. Holland missed out on Japan and South Korea.
Control is fundamental to Van Gaal and there are invariably problems when he feels that his authority over technical matters has been questioned. They flare regularly with the press. He once told a journalist: "Am I so smart or are you so stupid?" which has proved to be one of his most famous quotes, although disagreements with club colleagues have pockmarked his career.
It was perhaps inevitable that he would
clash with Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge at Bayern; football men who were, nominally, on the administrative side but who have strong opinions about the team. "Van Gaal's failure is clearly in his attitude," Rummenigge said after Van Gaal had left in 2011. "If that mentality is customary – as it is with Felix Magath – you have to have success. If it fails, you lose your friends."
Van Gaal endured friction at Barcelona with Rivaldo, the Brazil forward while, during his spell as Ajax's technical director in 2004, he clashed with the manager, Ronald Koeman. During a training camp in Portugal, Van Gaal took a chair for himself and placed it on the side of the pitch and, arms folded, he would watch all of Koeman's sessions from it. It is not difficult to imagine how Van Gaal might have reacted had the roles been reversed.
At Alkmaar, after a difficult season in 2007-08, when the team finished 11th out of 18, Van Gaal had wanted to quit. Many of the squad lacked hunger and his methods were not working. But a few key players urged him to stay and shape the team as he wanted for the following season. He did so, dropping the difficult players, imposing his mentality and winning the title by 11 points.
When Van Gaal can manage in his way, with his control and with players that he rates, the results can be impressive. He almost went to Manchester United in 2002 only for Sir Alex Ferguson to reverse his decision to retire. The fireworks have long come as standard.
