Van Gaal is a coach I continue to greatly admire, despite his stint at United. He was an innovator and leader at some point in time, and his achievements with Ajax shaped a lot of my formative experiences with football. His ludicrous 3-1-2-1-3 formation that won the Champions League and made another final, was something that boggled my mind at the time, and continues to amaze. Added to this he is quite a colourful and entertaining character, and over the years has shown himself to be an extraordinary identifier and developer of young talent.
But the problem with Van Gaal, much like the problem with other coaches I greatly admire such as Bielsa, is that he is a dogmatic idealist. He has his notion of how football should be played, and that is it. Van Gaal is somewhat of an artist who sees beauty in the minutiae of team interplay, rather than the more crude outcomes such as a goal scored or a goal conceded. This observation is borne out by his castigation of Herrera for scoring a goal against Everton when out of position. LVG would rather have the team never lose the ball in the entire match, achieving 100% possession and drawing 0-0, than play riskily with multiple turnovers of possession and win 2-0. If he was a sex coach, he'd be an acolyte of trantra - preferring to indefinitely postpone orgasm for hours on end, rather than getting three vigorous shags in over the same time period.
There is something admirable to be found in there somewhere, a certain reflective beauty in appreciating the elements of a game that 99.9% of the population wouldn't even notice. But what Van Gaal failed to realize is that for all the subtle and witty dialogue his film contained, his audience came to the theatre wanting a porno; not seventeen hundred hours of philosophical expression interspersed with the odd, six second, side-boob flash.
Van Gaal is, was, and always will be a genius in his own mind. For some he will remain an idealist for whom his greatest work goes unappreciated, for others a charismatic coach who entertained as much as he frustrated, and a for few, an interminable bore who drained all that was fun and entertaining from football. For my part, I see him as a little of all three. I have appreciated Van Gaal the genius at Ajax, Van Gaal the educator at Bayern, Van Gaal the entertainer and frustrator with Holland, and Van Gaal the stabilizer and bore with United.
His presence wasn't one that fit well with the United philosophy but I bear no ill will towards the man. I think he did a job in turning around the Moyes debacle, but ultimately just was not the right fit for this club.
if you don't like it maybe you should stay out?