Enlarge image
Bond coach Louis van Gaal: shaking his head at the stupidity of the world
Photo:
IMAGO/Press conference The Netherlands / IMAGO/ANP
Can you imagine a national player sitting on the podium next to Hansi Flick and having to stop laughing incessantly?
Virgil van Dijk, defensive star of the Dutch and as a professional at Liverpool FC with Jürgen Klopp is used to dealing with reporters, squats at the final press conference of Oranje before the game against Germany (8.45 p.m. / in the live ticker at SPIEGEL.de; TV: ARD) up there and has a hard time controlling his facial features.
Because next to him Louis van Gaal pulls off his Louis van Gaal show.
An entertainer
He lectures, he lectures, he snaps at journalists, he laughs, he gets upset, he rolls his eyes, shakes his head at so much stupidity in this world, in other words: the others.
A Dutch journalist then tweeted: »I could watch his press conferences for two hours.«
Shortly before, Flick had held his press conference, said something about the fact that “every victory builds self-confidence”, spoke about the “central axis” Manuel Neuer and Antonio Rüdiger, all in the calm Flick tone.
It was less necessary to suppress laughter than yawns.
Louis van Gaal, the Bonds coach, 70 years old, now responsible for Elftal for the third time, and Hansi Flick, 57, another generation of coaches - two coaches who ultimately raise the question of whether they have more in common or differences.
Differences aren't that big
There are few guys who differ more in character and habitus than Flick and van Gaal - and yet they both have the same mission, their story has points of contact, and in the end you have the feeling that the differences are not that big , as one thinks.
If you watch both of them one after the other how they behave in public, then you can hardly believe it.
Van Gaal plays with the media, he acts as if it bothers him terribly, these compulsory events with reporters, but he enjoys it with every fiber of his being.
How he conceals the line-up "to make it as difficult as possible for the Germans."
And the journalists too.
A gracious mumble
He blew up when a reporter innocently asked if all the players were fit and ready to play.
'That's just another clever attempt of yours to elicit something from me about the line-up,' grumbles van Gaal.
He has always been a provocateur.
In between, he gives Ajax coach Erik ten Hag career tips that he should rather go to a real football club than to Manchester United, as is currently being speculated.
He rails against the Conference League, calling it a "Jut-en-Jul-Competitie," which might be loosely translated as a fair, and he refuses to comment on any supposed German-Dutch rivalry.
Just one sentence as an answer: "I was born after the war." End of the debate.
The organizer Qatar is also an issue again, van Gaal had called the award to the emirate "ridiculous" and "bullshit" in the previous week, triggering a small diplomatic crisis.
Flick would never call Qatar “bullshit”, and he probably would never use the word anyway.
He would never call the Conference League a funfair.
And whispering to a journalist only happens to him when he's really annoyed.
Once a year maybe.
Tactical changes
And yet both coaches should do the same thing, both have basically the same job.
Both were committed with great expectations after a messed up summer at the European Championship.
Both teams had failed at the European Championships in the round of 16, Oranje under coach Frank de Boer, who could never manage more than mediocrity, Germany under an exhausted Joachim Löw.
There are now two who each have to modernize a major change in their teams because it couldn't go on like this.
Flick and van Gaal both made major tactical changes: the German got rid of the back five that his predecessor kept playing and shifted his team's entire center of gravity 20, 30 meters forward to provoke turnovers by pressing early .
That was Flick's recipe for success in Munich.
Van Gaal was even more radical.
He said goodbye to the 4-3-3 system that is sacred in the Netherlands and implemented a 3-4-3 with a three-man or five-man defensive line.
The Dutch sports author and Johan Cruyff biographer Auke Kok calls van Gaal "old, but not old-fashioned".
He "learned a lot in psychology," Kok told SPIEGEL.
If anyone dares to make such a cultural change, it's van Gaal.
Flick has also been van Gaal's heir in Munich
Both van Gaal and Flick worked as coaches at Bayern Munich for almost the same length of time, van Gaal 21 months, Flick 20 months.
That's too short for an era.
And yet both have shaped the club in this limited time.
Van Gaal discovered the talents of Thomas Müller and David Alaba by upgrading Bastian Schweinsteiger to a defensive midfielder.
He gave the team a whole new face.
That was all more than ten years ago, but if you ask around about van Gaal in Munich today, you get the feeling that he still has an impact.
And that despite the fact that great coaches like Jupp Heynckes and Pep Guardiola were in charge in the meantime.
"Despite his somewhat shorter tenure, he left a lasting impression not only at FC Bayern, but in the Bundesliga in general," said Thomas Müller about van Gaal.
One of van Gaal's heirs was Flick, who pacified the club after the turbulent period under Niko Kovač, restoring the players the confidence they needed to celebrate all those successes, with the Champions League to crown it all.
And last but not least, both of them didn't leave Bayern in harmony, which surprises nobody with van Gaal.
With Flick, on the other hand, a lot has to happen to make it so easy for him to leave.
In the evening in the Amsterdam Arena, both face each other, van Gaal, as is his way, left tips for his colleague: "In Hansi Flick's place, I would put Thomas Müller up because he will be very motivated against me."
Louis van Gaal knows better than the others.