Louis van Gaal, Netherlands football coach: Profile, Career, News & Videos

Louis van Gaal is a Dutch former football player and manager. At club level, he served as manager of Ajax, Barcelona, AZ, Bayern Munich and Manchester United, as well as having three spells in charge of the Netherlands national team. Nicknamed the \"Iron Tulip\", Van Gaal has won 20 major honours in his managerial career at club level.

Before his career as a coach, Van Gaal played as a midfielder for Royal Antwerp, Telstar, Sparta Rotterdam, Ajax and AZ. He is also a qualified physical education teacher, and worked at high schools during his career as a semi-professional footballer. After a brief spell as an assistant coach at AZ, Van Gaal served as an assistant under Leo Beenhakker at Ajax, and eventually took over as head coach in 1991. Under his lead, the club won three Eredivisie titles, the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League. He moved to Barcelona in 1997 and won two league titles and one Copa del Rey, but left after disagreements with the club's hierarchy.

Van Gaal was then appointed at the Netherlands, but failed to qualify for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. This preceded another brief spell at Barcelona, before he returned to AZ, where he won an Eredivisie title, the club's second ever in its history. He moved to Bayern Munich in 2009, and in Germany won the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and reached the final of the UEFA Champions League. He returned to manage the Netherlands for a second time, where he led the nation to a third-place finish at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. He was appointed manager of Manchester United later that summer, where he won the FA Cup before he was dismissed only days later. Despite announcing his retirement in 2019, due to family reasons, Van Gaal returned to management in August 2021, when he was appointed as head coach of the Netherlands for a third time. He retired from management after the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He later served as adviser to the Supervisory Board of Ajax from October 2023 until July 2026.