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Louis van Gaal (born August 6, 1951) is a respected Dutch football manager.
After a carreer as a footballplayer for Sparta Rotterdam and AZ Alkmaar he became an assistant coach in 1986. After a short carreer at AZ Alkmaar, he went to AFC Ajax Amsterdam to become Leo Beenhakker's assistant. When Beenhakker left in 1991, the ambitious van Gaal took over the lead.
He was AFC Ajax Amsterdam's manager from 1991 until 1997 and experienced a very successful tenure. Under van Gaal, Ajax became the Dutch champion three times - 1994, 1995 and 1996. He also managed to help Ajax to the KNVB Cup (now Amstel Cup) in 1993 and the Dutch Super Cup (now Johan Cruijff Shield) from 1993 to 1995. In the European scene, Ajax managed to capture the UEFA Cup in 1992 and the greatest prize of all, the European Cup in 1995 after beating AC Milan. Late in 1995, Ajax beat Brazilian side Gremio on penalties to win the Toyota World Cup (formerly Intercontinental Cup). Ajax were the European Cup runners-up in 1996 after losing to Juventus FC on penalties.
His success in Ajax was so great that during the 1990s, the Dutch national team was dominated by Ajax's players such as Patrick Kluivert, Marc Overmars, Frank and Ronald de Boer and Edwin van der Sar.
In 1997, he moved to FC Barcelona and helped the team to win two league Championship. Despite his success, he came under heavy fans' criticism and three seasons later, he quit the job and return to the Netherlands to manage the Dutch national team in preparation for the FIFA World Cup 2002 co-hosted by Korea and Japan.
Unfortunately, the Dutch team failed to qualify for the World Cup Finals. He was replaced by Dick Advocaat after the embarrassing failure.
He returned to Barcelona for a short spell, but left the job after half a year to be replaced by Radomir Antic.
In 2004, he returned to Ajax as a technical director. During his tenure, he insisted on selling Ibrahimovic to Juventus despite protest from the team manager at that time, Ronald Koeman. Later in October 19 of the same year, van Gaal resigned from Ajax.
In January 2005, news broke out that he will replace Co Adriaanse as AZ Alkmaar manager in the summer. Co Adriaanse has decided to leave AZ Alkmaar despite his team success this season.
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