Louis van Gaal does not believe his Bayern Munich team are among the elite sides of European football, despite being in the UEFA Champions League final.
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Tag: louis van gaalLouis Van Gaal's protege Jose
Mourinho, whose team he faces in the Champions League final on
Saturday, may be known as the Special One but the old Dutch
master delivered a sparkling performance of his... Read more...
Bayern Munich coach Louis Van Gaal wants football's powers to reconsider using technology because the stakes are so high in the modern game. Van Gaal says "details are always deciding the game," with ... Read more...
Bayern Munich's players may have needed time but have eventually come around to the methods and systems of Dutch coach Louis van Gaal, who has a second chance to win the Champions League final on Satu... Read more...
Ottmar Hitzfeld thinks Bayern Munich will dominate Europe in the coming seasons, while Arjen Robben has compared Louis van Gaal with Jose Mourinho.
Bayern Munich could not have
reached the Champions League final for the first time in nine
years without Louis van Gaal as coach, former player Paul
Breitner said on Thursday.... Read more...
Louis van Gaal has stated that he will be in charge of Bayern Munich next season, but revealed he is interested in coaching a national team thereafter.
Far more unites Bayern Munich
manager Louis Van Gaal and his Inter Milan counterpart Jose
Mourinho than their mutual desire to win the Champions League
final on Saturday.... Read more...
You’ve got to admit, the man is brilliant. Not just at coaching football teams, but at grabbing headlines too. Jose Mourinho knows exactly what the most controversial thing to say is at any given moment. It’s part of what makes him The Special One.
This week, in the build up to the 2010 UEFA Champions League Final between Mourinho’s Internazionale and Louis Van Gaal’s Bayern Munich, The Special One offered up this gem – and I quote…
“This game is the most important in the world,” said 47-year-old Mourinho. “It is even bigger than the World Cup because the teams in it are at a higher level than national teams, who can’t buy the best players.”
First let me point out the obvious: Mourinho is wrong. Or at least mostly wrong.
He’s right that the teams in the Champions League final are more expensively assembled and therefore theoretically “at a higher level”. But he’s wrong that the Champions League final is more important, because:
a) the entire world watches the World Cup, even those who don’t usually watch football, and
b) there’ll be another Champions League final next year. There won’t be another World Cup until 2014.
Still, bravo to Jose Mourinho for a deliciously controversial quote. Even though I know – I know – that he doesn’t really mean what he said, it’s still irritated me enough to write a blog post about it. The man’s a genius. And with World Cup fever starting to take serious hold (especially here on World Cup Blog the past couple of weeks) Mourinho’s quote is at the very least a timely reminder that the Champions League final is a big game, and is happening this weekend.
More than that, I now can’t wait for Jose Mourinho to become an international manager (probably with Portugal a few years from now) and to hear the sort of things The Special One has to say about club football when he’s trying to prepare his players for an international tournament.
- For more Champions League final buildup visit our team blogs at Inter Offside and Bayern Offside
Bayern Munich captain Mark van Bommel says the rift between striker Luca Toni and coach Louis van Gaal started when the Italian fell asleep at the table during a team lunch on the Dutchman's second da... Read more...