Louis van Gaal

Aloysius Paulus Maria "Louis" van Gaal (born 8 August 1951) is a Dutch former football player and manager who currently serves as an advisor for Ajax.

At club level, he served as manager of Ajax, Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar, Bayern Munich and Manchester United, as well as having three spells in charge of the Netherlands national team.

Van Gaal is one of the most decorated managers in the history of the game, having won 20 major honours in his managerial career.

He is sometimes nicknamed the "Iron Tulip".

Before his career as a coach, Van Gaal played as a midfielder for Royal Antwerp, Telstar, Sparta Rotterdam, Ajax and AZ Alkmaar.

He is also a qualified physical education teacher, and worked at high schools during his career as a semi-professional footballer.

He was loaned to Belgian First Division side Royal Antwerp playing under Guy Thys with whom he was runner-up in the Belgian top division in 1974 and 1975.

During his time with Antwerp, Van Gaal suffered a broken nose in a friendly against Kortrijk.

After four years spent in Belgium, he returned to his homeland and made his Eredivisie debut for Telstar under the guidance of manager, Mircea Petescu, whom he followed to Sparta Rotterdam.

He later joined AZ, where he also became assistant coach in 1986.

After a short career at AZ, he returned to Ajax to become Leo Beenhakker's assistant.

Ajax was so successful under Van Gaal's leadership that during the 1990s, the Netherlands national team was dominated by Ajax players such as Patrick Kluivert, Marc Overmars, Dennis Bergkamp, Frank and Ronald de Boer, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Winston Bogarde, Michael Reiziger and Edwin van der Sar.

After a brief spell as an assistant coach at AZ, Van Gaal served as an assistant under Leo Beenhakker at Ajax, and eventually took over as head coach in 1991.

Under his lead, the club won three Eredivisie titles, the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League.

When Beenhakker left in 1991, Van Gaal took over as manager.

Van Gaal was Ajax manager from 1991 until 1997 and had a very successful tenure.

On the European scene, Ajax captured the UEFA Cup in 1992 and the UEFA Champions League in 1995 after beating Milan in the final.

He also led Ajax to the KNVB Cup in 1993 and the Johan Cruyff Shield in 1993, 1994, and 1995.

Under Van Gaal, Ajax became the Eredivisie champions three times, in 1994, 1995 (notably going the entire 1994–95 season unbeaten in both the league and the Champions League) and 1996.

The latter win was followed by a 5–1 aggregate win over Real Zaragoza in the 1995 UEFA Super Cup.

Late in 1995, Ajax beat Brazilian side Grêmio on penalties to win the Intercontinental Cup.

Ajax were also Champions League runners-up in 1996 after losing to Juventus on penalties.

He moved to Barcelona in 1997 and won two league titles and one Copa del Rey, but left after disagreements with the club's hierarchy.

After serving out his contract at Ajax in 1997, Van Gaal received his knighthood in the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Van Gaal moved to Barcelona in 1997, taking over from Bobby Robson, and helped the team win two La Liga titles (1997–98, 1998–99) and the Copa del Rey once.

Despite this success, he clashed with the media and came under criticism.

He expressed that it was difficult to implement his football philosophy at Barcelona due to cultural differences, and that he struggled hard as some players were unwilling to follow his lead.

His rows with Rivaldo are an example of this: Van Gaal insisted Rivaldo play as a left winger, whereas Rivaldo argued that he wanted to play in the centre, in effect undermining Van Gaal.

Van Gaal eventually left the Catalan side on 20 May 2000, days after losing the league title to Deportivo de La Coruña, uttering the immortal line: "Amigos de la prensa. Yo me voy. Felicidades."

Van Gaal was then appointed at the Netherlands, but failed to qualify for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

This preceded another brief spell at Barcelona, before he returned to AZ, where he won an Eredivisie title, the club's second ever in its history.

("Friends of the press. I am leaving. Congratulations.") He returned to the Netherlands to manage the Netherlands national team in preparation for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Under Van Gaal, the Netherlands started their campaign to qualify for the 2002 World Cup poorly.

He moved to Bayern Munich in 2009, and in Germany won the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and reached the final of the UEFA Champions League.

He returned to manage the Netherlands for a second time, where he led the nation to a third-place finish at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

He was hired by Manchester United later that summer, where he won the FA Cup, before being dismissed in 2016.

Despite announcing his retirement due to family reasons in 2019, Van Gaal returned to management in August 2021, when he was appointed as head coach of the Netherlands for a third time.

Van Gaal was born in Amsterdam.

As a youngster, he started playing for the Amsterdam amateur side RKSV de Meer.

At the age of 20, he joined the second team of Ajax, but was never chosen to play in the first team, which at the time boasted players such as Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens in the midfield positions.