AZ vs Manchester United: How Louis van Gaal’s Alkmaar ‘masterpiece’ sent him on his way to Old Trafford

Without rebuilding his career at the Dutch club, Van Gaal would never have taken up United job

In the autumn of 2007, there came a moment that neatly summed up Louis van Gaal’s time at AZ Alkmaar up to that point. At a reunion for his class at the Dutch Academy of Physical Education, the 56-year-old, with an arthritic hip, attempted to demonstrate the pole vault to his former peers. He executed the leap well enough. The landing, less so. Van Gaal blamed the the smooth soles of his footwear for the fall which broke his leg in two places.

He was admitted to hospital, where doctors inserted six pins into his leg. The next day, he was confined to a wheelchair and swallowing a substantial amount of painkillers but also back at work, watching AZ beat NEC Nijmegen. Over the weeks and months that followed he could be seen barking instructions from a sedentary position on the touchline at the AFAS Stadion, with his leg cast in plaster and stretched out in front of him.

Clearly, Van Gaal had lost none of his eccentricity, but his reputation was perhaps in even worse shape than his leg. He had joined Alkmaar in 2005, a decade on from his career-defining Champions League triumph with Ajax. In the time since, he had been bruised by Barcelona, broken by the Dutch national team and endured a tempestuous spell back in Amsterdam as a technical director.

The move north to a city known only for its cheese markets appeared to signal a career in decline. But what Van Gaal would achieve in Alkmaar instead sparked a second coming. Without his “greatest little masterpiece”, as he calls it, he would not have gone on to a Champions League final with Bayern Munich, a World Cup semi-final with the Netherlands and he would not have managed Manchester United.

Why AZ, then? “The short answer is: he did not have a whole lot of choice,” says his biographer Maarten Meijer. “Van Gaal is too proud to agree with that assessment, but when he was hired at AZ he had something to prove in order to jump-start his career. Of course, Van Gaal never feels down and out, and he certainly relished the opportunity to remake a poorly-performing-side-with-potential in his own image.”

No team outside of Holland’s big three – Ajax, PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord – had won the league title since AZ in 1981. Despite still being much poorer than those, AZ was backed significantly by owner Dirk Scheringa. “In Alkmaar he could pretty much do what he wanted, and Louis likes it that way,” adds Meijer. Glance at his AZ squads and you recognise a number of names: Mousa Dembele, Graziano Pelle, Ragnar Klavan and Sergio Romero - likely to start against his old club on Thursday night - are all there.

Stijn Schaars joined the project in the summer of 2005 and would become Van Gaal’s captain. “The way he worked, that in my opinion was another level,” he says of his old boss. “There’s not one day you can give 95, it’s every day 100 per cent. I can understand that for some players, it is not easy to have him as a coach for years. Sometimes you want to loosen up. With him, it’s not possible. Every day, 100 per cent. For me it worked really well.”

AZ manager Van Gaal in a wheelchair in 2007 (Getty Images)

It did not immediately bear fruit, though. Just a few months before the pole vaulting incident, in Van Gaal’s second season at the club, a first league title in 26 years was within AZ’s grasp. Top of the table on the final day of the 2006-07 campaign, they only needed to beat relegation-threatened Excelsior to be crowned champions. They had their goalkeeper sent off, lost 3-2 and finished third.

Defeat in the KNVB Cup final followed, as did disappointment in a play-off for Champions League qualification. A season which promised everything up until the final few games resulted in nothing. Results worsened further the following year. Van Gaal survived the leg break during the early part of the 2007-08 season, but his position became increasingly precarious.

Only a players’ revolt saved him. “I was the main person,” says Schaars. “Me and another guy went upstairs to the director and said: ‘You can sack him, of course, but the problem is not the trainer. It’s the group.’ The captain and the vice-captain [Kew Jaliens], we were both injured for one year and the way it was in the dressing room, the guys who had the biggest mouth were not the guys who should have it.”

Schaars made clear that Van Gaal was still extremely popular with the players, but also reminded AZ’s decision-makers that this was no ordinary coach. “They should be happy that a trainer like Van Gaal was a trainer with AZ,” he says. “This kind of thing would not happen every year for AZ. Think about before you do this.” AZ heeded Schaars’s warning. “In the end, it worked out.”

At Alkmaar’s local cheese market the following summer, a fortune-teller told Van Gaal that his side would be crowned champions on 19 April. That appeared unlikely when they opened the Eredivisie season with two defeats but a 28-game unbeaten run followed, lasting the best part of eight months. It ended on 18 April, but Ajax’s 6-2 defeat to PSV the following day made AZ’s lead at the top unassailable. The long wait for a new team to win the Dutch top flight was over.;

Despite an unsuccessful tenure, Van Gaal’s influence is still present at United (Getty)

Schaars uses the word ‘machine’ repeatedly when describing that title-winning AZ team. “Every game we went on the pitch, we knew we were going to win. We were the best at playing football, the best organised, the best dedication.” The secret, put simply, was Van Gaal. “His influence was big. Every day, every hour, every minute, he’s on the spot. He’s never out of balance, always in control. That’s why he’s special, different to other trainers.”

Only one side outside Holland’s big three – Steve McClaren’s FC Twente – has matched AZ’s 2009 achievement since. The likelihood of another any time soon is remote. “It continues to be an amazing accomplishment, something quite similar in stature to Claudio Ranieri winning the Premier League with Leicester City in 2016,” says Meijer. “The minnows beat the big boys in style and how – most of – the people loved it. Hollywood makes billions selling underdog-beats-big-dude stories.”;

Van Gaal, meanwhile, needed to cash in. He was one of the more unlikely victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. He traded the power and influence he held at AZ for the greater financial security of Bayern, a job which reestablished his reputation as one of European football’s leading coaches and that, in turn, paved the way to Old Trafford. Van Gaal was unsuccessful at United, but his influence is still there, and it would not be if not for a brilliant yet under-appreciated spell in Alkmaar.