Sunday, January 13, 2008

Van Gaal Plays Down Personal Disaster

Actually, this was the heaviest ever defeat for their boss, Louis van Gaal. Working as a head coach on professional level since September 1991 for Barcelona, the Netherlands national side and of course Ajax he had never before known such a setback.

It was during his Amsterdam era that Van Gaal had suffered his previous biggest loss, when Ajax were thrashed 4-1 at PSV Eindhoven on February 6, 1994, with Ghanaian Nii Lamptey netting a brace.

All things considered, the 56-year-old remained calm. “In the first half we were simply better than Ajax and even after the restart we really came close to making it 2-2. What happened after their third goal does not really interest me.”

Van Gaal refused to blame Demy de Zeeuw’s sending-off for the defeat. “Demy should not have used his hand, but let the ball go in. However, I can understand that the referee didn’t see that the ball had already crossed the line.”


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