It's official! van Gaal is the new Manchester United manager

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 dead 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 itagainst 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 (Click this, you will not be disappointed). 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 determinewhich 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.

  

You might want to mention the source of the above: http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2014/05/21/british-journalists-follow-these-ten-rules-for-interviewing-louis-van-gaal/

Geoff Shreeves and Jamie Redknapp are in so much trouble..

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/19/article-2633169-1E0210B200000578-804_634x884.jpg

  

Long live LVG

MASTER

Will win quadruple

LVG: "This is the biggest club because it's known worldwide.But in sport you're never the biggest because you have to prove yourself."

already giving lessons in realism to man yoo fans

Really, if these people want to have any chance of getting along with him, they need to stop calling him 'Louie' ASAP.

Hapless_Hans wrote:Really, if these people want to have any chance of getting along with him, they need to stop calling him 'Louie' ASAP.

The interview woman closed the interview with: "Thank you, Van."

Fußball wrote:The interview woman closed the interview with: "Thank you, Van."

Is she still alive? *worried*

Fußball wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:Really, if these people want to have any chance of getting along with him, they need to stop calling him 'Louie' ASAP.

The interview woman closed the interview with: "Thank you, Van."

I'm not sure if she maybe did try to say "dank u wel'..
anyway the guy from the Independent was the only one you got the 'Mr van Gaal' right lol.



think it's really interesting how much he's talking about sponsors, owners, and 'commercial and footballing expectations' being not the same.
I think he HATES the fact he has to go on this US promotion tour so soon, travel and play show games instead of being able to systematically train.
He'll surely be opposed to midseason friendlies too, there's already trouble brewing .

spot on, but no manager would like to have to travel around the world during the league campaign to play promo games. It will take the focus out of his team. what were united thinking when they did that?

Hapless_Hans wrote:
I think he HATES the fact he has to go on this US promotion tour so soon, travel and play show games instead of being able to systematically train.

We are actually playing our first pre-season game later than everyone else, you can only delay for so long.

don't think this midseason stuff is decided yet.

But the US tour is obviously nonnegotiable in preseason, even though for a guy who wants to work systematically like van Gaal that is surely a pain in the ass.

Well pre-season will make his job easier in identifying the dead wood and assessing the squad in depth.

He said today that he would like to make the decision on the players himself.

Regarding the presser, I was impressed. Has charisma, confidence and most importantly, the proven ability to manage United.

'Philosophy'

Mr Nick09 wrote:LVG: "This is the biggest club because it's known worldwide.But in sport you're never the biggest because you have to prove yourself."

already giving lessons in realism to man yoo fans

naa, actually thanks to you guys's (anti man u's) main man moyesie our expectations have considerably dwindled for this season.   
People thinking all of a sudden our mindset will change to world domination now that King Louis has come to manage us   s who are doing nothing but wasting their time.

we know there are lot of work to be done still and our squad overall is not on par with other PL contenders let alone to challenge in europe. So for time being I will graciously accept steady progress and lvg laying foundation for the future. as long as we show signs of those, our performance in the league this season doesnt matter.

but having said all that, confident lvg can take us to top 4 'easily' btw this season itself. :

LVG's first meeting with Rooney.

Spoiler:

loooooooooooooooool

Aloysius Paulus Maria wrote:"We have to prepare the season and when you have commercial activities and dreadful distances, having to fly a lot and the jet lag, it is not very positive for a good preparation. "The tour was already arranged and I shall adapt and United will do everything to apply to my rules, but I have said that already.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/10984832/Louis-van-Gaal-Manchester-Uniteds-lengthy-pre-season-tours-bad-for-preparation-and-have-to-become-shorter.html

lmafao the Asian fans can keep singing his name, But i dont think they'll ever be able to watch the club on Asian soil live if he stays the manager.

yet another bait...

2 weeks later he will be dancing with the trophy at the Miami beach.

on a serious note though, next summer board will be bowing down to him, and will schedule short distance tours. all is good I reckon.

Biggest club in the world needs to be seen around the world
Van Gaal will see this