NETHERLANDS COACH LOUIS van Gaal has dismissed suggestions his appointment last month as Manchester United manager had a detrimental effect on his team’s World Cup preparations, instead suggesting the Premier League giants’ pursuit was a “good distraction.”
The former Ajax and Barcelona manager will take charge at Old Trafford once his Dutch side’s involvement in Brazil is at an end, having left the Netherlands’ pre-tournament training camp to sign a three-year contract to become the permanent replacement for the sacked David Moyes.
However the 61-year-old insisted the career move — like a day off for his players — did preparations no harm. That did not, however, stop him from plainly asking for no more talk of Manchester United at the press conference to preview the Netherlands’ Group B opener against World Champions Spain at the Arena Fonte Nova this afternoon (8pm BST).
The question about Manchester United, there is a place and a time and I don’t think this is the place. The World Cup is the championship and clubs don’t take part in it so I am fully focussed on the tournament.
“It may be a distraction, but that is not to say… the players, for instance, on Tuesday I gave them time off just to get out there. You can’t constantly focus on the World Cup, so perhaps Man United was a good distraction,” said Van Gaal, who refused to answer questions about Manchester United’s Spanish players, Juan Mata and David De Gea.
“I’m not going to comment on individual players, I never do that. The team are more important than the individual players,” said Van Gaal with a smile. “Tough luck.”
Throw in a few references to himself in the third person and this was a vintage performance from Van Gaal, who had his superstar attacker Arjen Robben chuckling alongside him throughout the press conference, particularly when discussing the importance of keeping the Bayern Munich player’s wife, Bernadine, happy.
“She might have been difficult to him before the 2010 final, you have got to be careful as a football player and you cater for that,” said Van Gaal. “We have an excellent atmosphere in the group and it increases our chances if we have a good time together.”
The outgoing Dutch manager was responding to a question regarding the relaxed attitude he has encouraged among his squad and, again, his answer had Robben’s shoulders shaking.
“I’m very surprised,” he said to the Brazilian journalist. “Your Dutch colleagues don’t see me that way. They think I’m strict, very forthright, direct. My players wouldn’t say that. I just said, ‘if you’re nice to others normally they reciprocate’.”
The smile could not be wiped off Robben’s face, even when he was asked to relive his glaring miss when sent though one on one against Iker Casillas in the 2010 final defeat to Spain.
“It was a moment, just a snapshot, part of me for my entire career, my whole life. it is past tense,” he said. “We are focussing on something completely different. It doesn’t count anymore.”
