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Van Gaal

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From the SI article by Raphael Honigstein:

10. Man-Management.

Van Gaal's authoritarian style rubbed plenty of people the wrong way to begin with. After Luca Toni's move back to Italy (December '09), the majority of the players came to terms with the manager's harsh ways. Success on the pitch made them put up with him, even when he employed some unorthodox methods -- he once showed them his genitals -- to motivate them. Publicly, the players insisted van Gaal was treating them fairly but they felt increasingly exasperated as this car crash of a season progressed. Max Reckers, the video analyst, was a source of constant irritation: he patronized players and spoke to them as if they were school children.

After one particular bad dressing-down, Holger Badstuber was close to tears. Even Arjen Robben distanced himself from his compatriot. "His management style reminds me of that of Felix Magath," said Rummenigge. "It doesn't win you any friends."

It seems that Max Reckers will follow him to the Mancs:

http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/2...+en+ik+kunnen+het+goed+vinden+met+elkaar.aspx

Google translation:
Max Reckers to work at Manchester United, "Van Gaal and I get along well with each other '

Last Modified: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 - 18:08 | Author: Amber Stalenhoef
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LONDON - He is over the moon: Max Reckers from Eindhoven. Next season he will be performance analyst at Manchester United. Louis van Gaal has Reckers included in the technical staff. Now Eindhovenaar is an analyst with the Dutch national team.

After the World Cup in Brazil Reckers immediately relocated to England. "My holiday ones to lose out. But I really do not. This is a great job. "

Click between Reckers and Van Gaal
Reckers Van Gaal has been a long time. Previously, he worked with him at the German Bayern Munich. He then moved back to the Netherlands national team.

And after the World Cup in Brazil, he is therefore to work in England again with Louis van Gaal. "We get along well with each other, let me keep it there," said Reckers.

Data collector
As a performance analyst, he has an important role in the technical staff: "I collect all the data: the opponent, but also of ourselves. I get information from scouts, universities and companies that deal with statistics. All that data I bundle and I put away in a network. All members of the technical staff able to that data. They make us stronger team. "

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BTW, I really like Hongstein as a writer - he cover the Bundesliga in his column in the Guardian online and it's always an interesting read, just like Sid Lowe's take on the La Liga and Paolo Bandini's coverage of the Serie A in the same site.
 
He's hard to look at, that's for sure. There's ugly folks that you look at and it's obvious what the deal is, like Ribery. And then there's people like van gaal that nature has conspired against in a devilish way. Every line and angle of the face just 4 or 5 degrees askew so that no one feature or line looks wrong when taken in isolation, but when it's all combined the effect is devastating and you have a head that looks like it was drawn by an angry 7 year old who's had too much fanta.
Those Fanta filled little fuckers!
 
British journalists: follow these ten rules when interviewing Louis van Gaal

ANP-27278380_385843-568x354.jpg

Holland manager Louis van Gaal, joining Manchester United after the World Cup.

by Peter Zantingh


Dear British football journalists,

Congratulations on obtaining Louis van Gaal. From this moment on, you will be patronised, looked at with disdain, and haunted by a constant doubt if Mr. Van Gaal is flat out making fun of you or being deadly serious. Before you embark on the journey that is having a post match interview with Mr. Van Gaal, you should make yourself familiar with these ten ground rules.

1. Be prepared for any possible mood Contrary to many other managers, whether the match is won, drawn or lost is no indication whatsoever of Van Gaal’s mood. Even if he has won and seems to be quite happy, one wrong question can - and will - put him off.

2. Start neutral Begin with a question about the match just played. “How did your team do?” or “What did you think?” will suffice. “You must be very disappointed” will not. That is because the match you saw and the match he saw can be very different ones. Mr. Van Gaal is perfectly comfortable declaring that a 0-3 loss at home to Sunderland was his team’s best game all season, just because his players were doing what he told them to do. It’s not always about what ends up on the scoreboard. Don’t enter the interview thinking it is.

3. Don’t introduce yourself Or else he’ll know your name, remember it and use it against you. You will not be some anonymous guy with a microphone and a cameraman on his side; you will be Gary, or Clive, or Tony, with whom he will or will not have a feud from the get-go. (He will.)

4. Stay on topic If the interview’s about the game, you talk about the game. Not about the next game, transfer rumours or whatever happened on the training pitch. Every question about anything else than the game just played will derail the conversation.

5. It’s his language now, not yours Mr. Van Gaal will come up with new additions to the Oxford Dictionary. In Germany, he inadvertently (or was it?) introduced the phrase Der Tod oder die Gladiolen, a Dutch saying meaning literally “death or the gladioli”: all or nothing. This is because if Mr. Van Gaal speaks your language, it is no longer your language, it’s his. It is not Mr. Van Gaal who has trouble speaking English, it is you, for not going along with his obviously much better interpretation of it.

6. Try to avoid the meta-interview An interview with Mr. Van Gaal will almost inevitably wind up being an interview about the interview, or more specifically, him asking questions about your questions. This will be the moment you feel the conversation is slipping away from you. Switch back to the studio, or it will end up on YouTube.

7. Don’t repeat the question Never mind - you will fail at this. You won’t fool him, even if you think your follow-up question is a cleverly rephrased, well disguised one. He’ll say: “I just told you”. This is inevitable. Don’t try to avoid it, just try to get past it without crashing, like you would at a speed bump.

8. Keep on your toes At some point, you will think Mr. Van Gaal is joking. Sure, he does it with a straight face, but he’s joking, he must be. He’s mocking you. Or is he really this angry about this little thing you just said? No - it can’t be. You start to stammer. Ha! He’s just taking a… wait, is he? You will never know, as only Mr. Van Gaal knows. And he never breaks character.

9. Distinguish fact from opinion This is hard, as only Mr. Van Gaal can determine which are facts and which are opinions. Which team was disadvantaged by the ref, or which team should have won based on the number of chances? He, and only he, will have the answer. These are the facts. Your facts are opinions. After the 1-1 draw of Holland against Ecuador last Saturday, he called the 0-1 an “unfortunate ball moment”: nothing to do about it. In Mr. Van Gaal’s world, this makes perfect sense. In your world it may not, but you are not to point this out, as he will call you dumb.

10. Stay under three minutes Try to get everything you need within that window. After that, the chances of hitting a conversational speed bump will statistically rise. You’ll start wandering into other realms of conversation (how about this or that rumour, Mr. Van Gaal?), or you will ask a question a second time, or he will say you did. After that, you’re on your own. Good luck, mate.

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2014/05/21/british-journalists-follow-these-ten-rules-for-interviewing-louis-van-gaal/
 
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