Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Louis van Gaal. The man has coached some of the biggest European clubs in history. The man even received knighthood in Holland, his native country. With that though, the man has also won endless trophies. With those trophies, though, one thing has become clear with van Gaal's teams. It is either his way or the highway. He is known to be ruthless, arrogant, and stubborn. Yet, up until now, the man has always been successful. As such, as we know, in our world today, when you are successful people tend to look the other way. Yet, his season this year, is a perfect example of what happens when performances start to drop, people start to notice the bad things in others. Now this is exactly what is happening at Manchester United currently. United is the equivalent to being the Yankees of English soccer. They have the most championships, they spend a lot of money, and they have an amazing and rich history that goes way back. So let's talk about United, and how they got to van Gaal and why it all is going sour very fast. Here is a video of van Gaal when he was coaching Bayern Munich in Germany. The club is one of the most well known clubs in the world and this is during a parade at the end of their season. Notice how the intoxicated van Gaal makes the show about himself, rather than his team.


Prior to van Gaal Manchester United had a manager named David Moyes, whose tenure lasted less than a year, due to his poor performance. Before Moyes, though, United had Alex Ferguson. Alex Ferguson can be described as the Vince Lombardi of all coaches in soccer. The man won 13 league championships, 5 FA cups, 4 league cups, and 2 champions league trophies. All in all, he won 32 trophies in 27 years. United was a big club prior to his arrival, yet once he left them, it was the biggest English club in the world. But, when Ferguson retired, and Moyes failed, United turned to King Louis to save them and bring them back to their old ways.


Let's now jump to today and this season. United are in 5th in the league. They have spent nearly $350 million dollars on players that he has brought in. Van Gaal has sold some players who are some of the fan favorites, such as Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, Robin Van Persie, and Danny Welbeck, who are doing extremely well at their new clubs.  Manchester United fans can look past their favorite players being let go, because they understand that it is a business. Yet when the money spent on this current team produces boring and unmotivated performances, boos begin to fill the stands and fans begin to question whether or not van Gaal is the man for United. But, remember earlier when I mentioned that van Gaal is stubborn and arrogant? This is really what pisses off the fans. Van Gaal refuses to change the way the team plays, his tactics remain boring, and most importantly the fail to bring wins to the club. As such, his arrogant interviews claiming that his tactics and attitude will eventually lead to wins is starting to make the situation worse. This is because it almost seems as though the man is delusional. How could he possibly think that things will change? The team consistently fails to put together a performance to be proud of. The team is light-years away from being a top club in the world like it used to be. (Barcelona video to prove this). Now, if you read none of this post, or thought it was awful, at least watch this video to see what it looks like when the three best players in the world play on the same team.