‘Iron Tulip’ Van Gaal to retire from football
FIREBRAND manager Louis van Gaal has announced his retirement from professional football after more than three decades, citing “family reasons”, a Dutch newspaper reported yesterday.
“I don’t believe I’ll return back to work,” Van Gaal told popular daily tabloid De Telegraaf, which added he is “definitely drawing a line under his training career”.
The man nicknamed the “Iron Tulip” has received dozens of lucrative offers since his unceremonial axing from Manchester United last year, including a three-year con- tract in the East, most likely China, which would pay an estimated € 50 million ($53.4 million) over three years, the paper said.
“I could have taken the cont r ac t ,” Va n Gaa l told t he paper. “But I’m still here. So much has happened wit hin my family and it has become time to face facts.”
Fla mboya nt a nd out spoken, Van Gaal, 65, found himself in t he midst of a fa mily dra ma a f ter t he husband of one of his daug hters unexpectedly passed away, De Telegraaf said.
Despite winning the FA Cup last year – United’s first major silverware since the retirement of legendary boss Sir Alex Ferguson – Van Gaal was given the boot in May.
He said then he was contemplating taking another manager’s job.
“I said I would stop but then cleverly called it a ‘sabbatical’. But now I don’t believe I’ll return to work,” Van Gaal told De Telegraaf on receiving a lifetime achievement award in The Hague on Monday.
“Actually I wanted to stop after the [FIFA] World Cup,” in Brazil in 2014, where Van Gaal’s Dutch side ended third behind Argentina and Germany. “Then suddenly England called. It was a beautiful country I did not yet have on my CV.”
Winning the FA Cup with the Red Devils “was the greatest achievement of my career”, he added.
The Amsterdam-born Van Gaal won the Dutch title three times with Ajax in 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1995-96, winning the European Cup with the side in 1995. He also guided them to the UEFA Cup in 1992.
After moving to Barcelona, he won back-to-back championships in 1997-98 and 1998-99.
Back in his homeland he again took league honours with Dutch minnows AZ Alkmaar in 2009. The former Sparta Rotterdam player then won the Bundesliga in 2010 during a stint with Bayern Munich.
Asked whether he felt he has rea l ised a l l his drea ms, t he ma n of ten k now n for h i s blunt a nswers during press c on ferenc e s s a id : “I have achieved ever y t hing during my lifetime.”
“I don’t want to brag about all the countries where I’ve worked, and the level of clubs I’ve coached, but for me there’s really nothing else left [to do],” Van Gaal said.