Van Gaal: I set clubs up for the future

Louis van Gaal has ticked all the right boxes in his interviews since becoming the manager of Manchester United. This week he has again shown why he is the perfect man for the job, focussing on developing players from the youth team, which follows on in the steps of Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson.

“I’m not a coach who thinks short term,” said Van Gaal. “I am a coach who thinks always in the long term. The way you see Barcelona still playing with six players from my time because I gave a lot of chances to the youth players. The structure and the culture of the club is Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Valdes and Motta. I also gave him his debut and he is playing in Paris St.Germain now, not a little club. At Bayern Munich it was the same. You can see that in Muller, Alaba, Klose, that kind of player. So I am always for the long term not the short term. When I buy, I buy players for the long term, not the short term because I do respect the club a lot and also the other clubs. When you see Ajax I had the youngest team to win the Champions League with 17, 18, 19 year-old players. When you use youth players of the club they know the culture of the club and they want to defend that culture and wear that culture and transfer that culture. When you buy a player from outside you have to wait and see and not every player will fulfil your expectation. It is much more difficult, also for the player.”