Jose Mourinho’s Career Beginning to Resemble His Manchester United Predecessor

Louis van Gaal left Barcelona by mutual consent in January 2003, but despite this being probably the most tightly packed two-word phrase in football management, this particular departure didn’t take much analysis to unpick. Some departures are more “mutual” on one side than the other.

Barcelona were on such a wretched run of results by the mid-point of the season that it seems incredible Van Gaal was still clinging onto his job beyond Christmas. Worse, alongside the cripplingly bad form that had brought six wins and eight defeats from 19 games, the manager had fallen out with 1999 Ballon d’Or winner Rivaldo so hard and publicly that the Brazilian was released for free despite having a year of his contract still to run.

Van Gaal had shouldered the blame for poor returns from high-profile replacements Juan Roman Riquelme and Gaizka Mendieta, and his Barcelona looked doughy and drained of inspiration, mired in the middle reaches of LaLiga and only three points above the drop zone.

For all the hyperbole and diplomacy, this was a sacking in all but name.

“He came into the dressing room after hearing the news, started to talk, and all of a sudden began crying like a baby,” former Barcelona defender Philippe Christanval told SRF this week (h/t Goal.com), of the moment Van Gaal learned of his fate following a 2-0 defeat away at Celta Vigo. “He was really hurt. It impacted me seeing him cry. He was a hard, cold person, and here he was destroyed.”

It’s difficult not to feel sympathy with Van Gaal’s plight. Three-and-a-half years before breaking down in the bowels of Celta’s Balaidos he’d celebrated guiding Barcelona to a second consecutive LaLiga title which, when combined with his tenure as Ajax manager, brought to a close a personal run of five titles in six seasons.

That run had also seen him lift the European Cup with the Dutch giants in 1995, as his brilliant Ajax showed themselves to be worthy torch-bearers of Johan Cruyff’s total football of the 1970s and ’80s. As a Dutchman, to have conquered both Amsterdam and Barcelona, Van Gaal had stood briefly on the shoulders of a king. Now his own shoulders heaved with heavy sobs.

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Though it’s easy to say so now, his tenure at Manchester United played out with a certain thread of predictability running through it. Despite a mini-revival in fortunes between 2009 and 2014—a league title each with Bayern Munich and AZ Alkmaar, to go with a third-placed finish at the World Cup with the Netherlands—Van Gaal hadn’t been an elite-level manager for …

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