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Tip-Toe Through The Tulip

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Louis Van Gaal

Louis Van Gaal doesn’t need much of an introduction – he’s been a well known football face since he rose to international prominence as coach of the all-conquering Ajax side of the early 90’s. Outspoken and never far from controversy or shy of confrontation, he’s dominated the back pages of Spain, Germany and his native Holland for the best part of 3 decades. Now newly installed as United boss, one anticipates that a repeat scenario over here is completely inevitable.

Coinciding with his arrival at Old Trafford is the release of Louis Van Gaal – The Biography by Maarten Meijer (Ebury Press, £16.99). Meijer is a Dutch football commentator and academic who has previously published books on Guus Hiddink and Dick Advocaat. This latest effort offers a welcome crash course in the life and times of the man christened the ‘Iron Tulip’ by the German press.

The book is a comprehensive run through Van Gaal’s career to date and an attempt to dig beneath the public perception of him as nothing more than a bullying, dogmatic control freak. Sound familiar? Oh yes, it’s pretty striking how many parallels there are between Van Gaal and Sir Alex Ferguson. Unspectacular playing career? Check. Incredible work ethic? Check. Belief in youth? Check. Love of rotation and constant tinkering? Ch… you get the idea.

Unlike Ferguson, Van Gaal has never managed to stay in one place beyond a few years, however. The author details the reasons why tenures at Ajax, Barca and Bayern all ultimately unravelled, mainly due to his autocratic style being at odds with the political structures in place at each of these European giants. That said, Meijer also describes a man capable of embracing change who’s refined his football vision over the years. Meijer suggests LVG’s first spell at Ajax imploded as the demands of his ‘total football’ philosophy took a physical toll on his group of players. Van Gaal went on to revise this singular approach in later years, with his title winning team at AZ Alkmaar instead characterised by an ultra-direct, counter-attacking style of play.

After detailing a career built on principles of “discipline, structure and organisation”, Mejier reaches a conclusion of sorts by proposing that LVG has shown signs of mellowing in recent times and the ‘Van Gaal 2.0’ arriving in England is a more “relaxed and diplomatic” creature. The squad of players he’s inherited (not to mention the Manchester press pack) will certainly be hoping so.

During his first season at Munich (when Van Gaal took on an underachieving side and led them to the brink of the treble) Karl-Heinz Rummenigge expressed delight with the new appointment, “he’s the right man at the right club at the right time.” Whether that’s the case now remains to be seen – although based on the evidence presented here, it’s going to be a whole lot of fun finding out.

Strap yourselves in, people.

Copyright Red News – August 2014

www.rednews.co.uk

The End

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Brendan Rodgers

This season. This fucking season. As we reach the final couple of weeks it’s now become clear that Moyesageddon was only a precursor to the main kick in the bollocks: Liverpool are going to win the league. Shanks looking down, Stevie G, Suarez’s rebirth, Brendan Rodgers, class and dignity, justice at last, back on their perch… just switch off now and avoid contact with everyone and everything until August.

I’m not sure how this has happened. They finished 7th last season and Rodgers was something of a laughing stock to everyone outside of the red half of Merseyside. I predicted he’d get another year before being found out and hounded out of the place, Hodgson-style. Suarez was desperate to leave, Gerrard was creaking, Carragher had retired… they were just a mix of flop signings, average journeymen, a couple of promising kids and Suarez. A Champions League spot looked beyond them, never mind actually winning it.

Yet here we are. Rodgers has left his fat wife and had his teeth done, they’ve scored 96 goals (one for each angel) at the time of writing and won 11 league games on the bounce. Since the realisation dawned it was a possibility, I’ve been clinging to the hope that once the pressure of being in sight took hold, they might crack. Instead, Chelsea and City have been so generous in chucking points away that it looks like Liverpool are going to win it with games to spare. No nerves, no gut-wrenching fear, no fixture congestion – just a steady procession to the title.

Rather than endure any 1992-style heartbreak, it appears they’ve wisely fast forwarded to 1993. They’ve got that momentum United had back then, where everything has aligned and neatly fallen into place. Gerrard, whether you can stomach the comparison or not, is their Bryan Robson. Suarez, despite being a hateful shit, possesses the same potent mix of genius and lunacy as Eric Cantona. Obviously I can’t stand him, but he’s an absolutely brilliant footballer – the standout player in the league this year by a mile. I don’t rate Liverpool as a great side, but why should that bother them? United won it last season and we weren’t a great side either.

If Liverpool do win it, it’ll be richly deserved. Yes, Rodgers is a Brent-esque buffoon, but he’s absolutely perfect for them and knows exactly what buttons to press. He’s all sentimentality and syrupy rhetoric, referencing their past at every opportunity whilst bigging-up the fans and their knowledge and their sportsmanship and their influence and their humble nature etc etc. He’s clearly a skilled coach who knows his way round a training pitch, but he’s proving himself a skilled manager too. Rodgers understands the scousers’ love of self-aggrandising bullshit and their inherent sense of moral superiority – and he’s got the whole place in awe of him at present. It doesn’t really matter that he’s talking bollocks as long as everyone is listening and believing in him.

Moyes

Which brings us to David Moyes… to whom people are still listening, although believers are becoming scarcer by the day. Indeed, as I’m writing this, news is breaking that his departure will likely be announced within hours. It comes as no great surprise. The last few weeks have just been a continuation of what we’ve witnessed all season – mostly miserable, punctuated with the odd decent performance when the opposition isn’t up to much. The Bayern tie ended up exactly as anticipated (soundly beaten) and his much heralded return to Goodison resulted in another predictably meek showing. We really can’t go on like this.

I’m not sure why the feeling in pubs or internet message boards or day-to-day conversations hasn’t led to vocal dissent at the match. Is it just pigheadedness or drunkeness or are people genuinely expecting things to improve over the next few months? The team don’t look like they’re improving, they look like they’re going backwards. Players don’t look like they are playing for the manager, they look like they are playing in spite of the manager. There’s no confidence and no belief. All this ’20 times, 20 times’ nonsense is really starting to grate too; we took the piss out of the scousers for years for their ‘we won it 5 times’ comfort blanket bleating – is that what we’ve been reduced to? ’20 times’ has become the soundtrack to our downfall. ‘Playing football the Matt Busby way’? Yeah right, if only.

I was never comfortable with the Moyes appointment and said as much in this column before he was handed the job. There were better options available and I didn’t agree with the reasons given against other key candidates – all proven winners who happened not to be Scottish. Looking back, it’s quite insane how (if we are to believe the account in his book) Ferguson was virtually given carte blanche in appointing his own successor. It’s absolutely crackers. Was anyone else even short listed? Why was no one else interviewed?

That said, I was quite prepared to give Moyes time. He said straight away that changes needed to be made, which at the time was really encouraging given that Fergie trotted out the “very happy with the squad” line every time the ongoing lack of investment was questioned. He was serious, grounded and clearly not versed in making extravagant claims or outlandish gestures. Okay, there was very little stardust there, or irreverence or mischief – qualities that Ferguson relied upon time and time again. Life under Moyes was always going to be a little more dour and methodical, that’s just his nature.

The hope was that in time, he would grow into the job and start to look and sound more like a Manchester United manager. The reality, however, is that the exact opposite has occurred. As I’ve said before, it’s not the results that have hurt so much this season, it’s the manager’s doleful reaction to them. As time has gone on, Moyes has appeared more and more defeatist in his media briefings – everything appears to be about lowering, as opposed to increasing expectations.

As supporters, we don’t need to be reminded that we’ve ‘enjoyed the Champions league experience’. Champions League football has been a minimum expectation here for the last 20 years. A successful campaign is not qualifying for the Champions League, it’s WINNING the Champions League… and the Premier League. That is the benchmark and what we should be looking towards doing every single season. We are not Newcastle, or Aston Villa or Everton. Failing to qualify this year shouldn’t be seen as a disappointment, it should be seen as a complete fucking catastrophe.

Nobody is demanding that we win every single game or win titles every year – we’re not stupid and we know football doesn’t work like that. What we should demand is a manager who has the ability to confound, inspire and bring people together – and we’ve not seen anything like that from Moyes over the last 9 months. Something needs to change. By the time you read this, it probably already has.

Enjoy the hibernation period, it’s going to be a long summer…

Copyright Red News – April 2014

www.rednews.co.uk

A Child’s Claim To Fame

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Diego

When the editor asked me to note down any recollections I had of United vs Barcelona in March 1984, I was shocked with the realisation that we were approaching the 30th anniversary of the game. THIRTY YEARS. Wow, where the fuck has that gone?

On reflection, 1984 was pretty miserable. My Dad’s work was sporadic at the time which meant there was very little spare cash floating about. Consequently, I was on free school dinners, rocking 4 stripe trainers off the market and riding round a purple Raleigh Chopper instead of the much-coveted Adidas Grand Slam and Mongoose BMX’s that my friends were enjoying. The news had stopped talking about imminent nuclear war and riots and was instead concerned with Torvill & Dean and the plight of the miners. Lionel Ritchie was Number 1 in the charts. None of this really registered with me to be honest, it was only background noise because I still had United to look forward to.

The Old Trafford of my childhood was nothing like the gigantic shrine to commercialism that stands in its place today. Back then, it was just a football ground that had barely changed in decades. If I had to sum up 1980’s OT in two words, they would probably be ‘faded glamour’. Paint peeling off rusty girders, cracked panes of glass, the stenches of chip fat, rancid burgers, bleach and perpetual under achievement – it was as grim as it was intoxicating.

United were doing pretty well by March, however. Unbeaten in 16 league games, we went top of the table 4 days prior to the Barca game after smashing Arsenal 4-0 at Old Trafford – a game notable for scores of people brandishing clipboards around the turnstiles, collecting signatures imploring the club not to sell Bryan Robson. It seems a quaint idea now, somewhat naive… but that’s how important Robbo was at the time. A figurehead, a leader, a genuine colossus – the sort of midfielder who comes along once in a generation. It was perhaps fitting then, that those United fans doing their best to persuade player and club to resist suitors from abroad, were rewarded days later with a performance that was probably the finest of his career.

Despite United possessing a genuine world class talent in Robson, Barcelona boasted an even greater star themselves in the shape of Diego Maradona – and just having the chance to see him in the flesh was a major event in itself. Back then there was no Champions League or televised football on the scale there is today – indeed I’d listened to the 1st leg, 2-0 reverse on the radio. The only time Maradona had ever really been seen was during the ’82 World Cup where he’d been largely anonymous and marked out of the tournament. Despite being this enigmatic, almost mythical figure, he was still generally considered to be the greatest player in the world – although he wouldn’t go on to prove that until the tournament in Mexico, 2 years later.

I’d been going to United for a couple of years by 1984 and had attended both previous European games that season, vs Dukla Prague (soon to be immortalised after being namechecked by legendary 80’s scouse pop-ironists Half Man Half Biscuit) and the never-again-to-be-heard-of Spartak Varna of Bulgaria. This was all very exciting in itself due to European football being all exotic and unknown and that, but drawing Barcelona in the QF was proper next level shit. It seemed about as big as it was ever gonna get.

After sweating on whether or not I’d actually get a ticket – my Dad was often lax in buying the requisite two programmes per game for the tokens – there was much relief when he confirmed it was all sorted. I had a ticket in my hand: Stretford Groundside Junior, for the scarcely credible by today’s standards sum of £1.20.

ticket

Although we always paid into the Stretford End (a season ticket or LMTB wasn’t a necessity back then), we never watched the game there because being sub-5ft and weighing about 5 stone at the time, I’d probably have been trampled to death. Instead we had a regular arrangement going with the old boy on the gate, who was paid £1 per game to let us through to the seats upstairs in E-Stand. Not that we ever sat down, our spec was right behind the goal at the top – stood up against the handrail.

That handrail was the bane of my life for a couple of years, since its height was exactly level with my line of sight. This meant I had two options: either I could watch the game on tiptoes with my chin resting on top or more comfortably, with my brow resting on the bar whilst peering underneath. As a result, I’d usually leave the match sporting a horizontal indent on my forehead that would remain visible for the next couple of hours.

The game, as has been recounted many times since that night, was absolutely incredible. I’ve been at pretty much every big match in the intervening 30 years and nothing, perhaps only the white noise madness of that five minutes in the Nou Camp in ’99, comes close to the atmosphere generated. As a kid, I just recall being absolutely ecstatic to have experienced it first-hand and almost overwhelmed with happiness and relief following the final whistle. Before writing this I watched the 10 minute highlights clip on YouTube again and it genuinely makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

It’s the 3rd goal that does it. Wilkins picking the ball up in his own half and wheeling his arm, signalling for everyone to bomb forward. Robson clips a glorious ball out wide that’s met by Arthur Albiston and by the time his cross enters the box, the Stretford End are already celebrating the goal. Just listen to it, it’s mad. The cross comes in and the strangulated “YESSSSSSSS…” starts whilst the ball is still in the air. Whiteside heads it back across the penalty area and then Stapleton buries it. Bedlam. The cheering starts about 3 seconds before the ball hits the net.

Robbo

It was Robson’s night. Footage shows him absolutely exhausted at the end as he’s chaired off the pitch by hoards of cavorting wedge haircuts in stonewashed denim and Pringle jumpers. He staggers up the tunnel and is first gripped by Ron Atkinson, then looks in dire need of oxygen as he’s interviewed by Elton Welsby. Sadly, and typically for the era, our campaign fell to pieces after that. Arnold Muhren never kicked another ball that season, Robson was crucially injured for the 2nd leg of the Juventus semi and United limped home in the league, scoring only 8 goals and winning twice in our final 10 games. At least Robbo stayed though, with the board deciding to cash in on Ray Wilkins instead.

Despite being present as a 10 year old kid, I was fully aware of the night’s significance as it just felt absolutely huge in comparison to any game I’d attended previously. To this day, my Dad still describes it as “the best ever” and he’s been going to the match since the early 60’s – so that will do for me too. “Barcelona, Real Madrid, they will make a gallant bid, but United are the greatest team of all.” Damn right.

It was, quite simply, the greatest of the great Old Trafford nights.

Copyright Red News – March 2014

www.rednews.co.uk