Van Gaal’s relief of Koeman is now official

Louis van Gaal, 71, has officially closed his third spell as Netherlands coach after announcing he will not continue after the Qatar 2022 World Cup due to prostate cancer.

The replacement, already announced by the Federation a few months ago, is Ronald Koman, who led ‘Oranje’ between 2018 and 2020, when he left the post to take the reins of Barça, and will once again take the reins of team from January 1.

gg.didomi.doWhenConsent(!window.didomiBypass, ‘c:twitterwi-wUmBnnKy’, function () {
var x = document.createElement(‘script’);
x.setAttribute(“type”,”text/javascript”);
x.setAttribute(“src”, “//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”);
x.setAttribute(“charset”, “utf-8”);
$(“.twitter-tweet”).closest( “span” ).append(x);
});

“What an adventure it has been. Thanks for everything, coach,” tweeted the Dutch Football Federation (KNVB) with a photo of Van Gaal, coach in three periods (2000-2001, 2012-2014 and 2021-2022) and club coach like Ajax, Barcelona, ​​Manchester United or Bayern Munich.

gg.didomi.doWhenConsent(!window.didomiBypass, ‘c:twitterwi-wUmBnnKy’, function () {
var x = document.createElement(‘script’);
x.setAttribute(“type”,”text/javascript”);
x.setAttribute(“src”, “//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”);
x.setAttribute(“charset”, “utf-8”);
$(“.twitter-tweet”).closest( “span” ).append(x);
});

In another message, along with a photo of the coach saying goodbye on a soccer field, the Federation wrote: “Three times our boss. Thank you Louis.”

Van Gaal announced in April that he was undergoing treatment to recover from aggressive prostate cancer and announced that he would not continue after the World Cup. After the elimination of the Netherlands against Argentina in the quarterfinal penalty shootout, it was reaffirmed.

“I am not going to continue in the national team because it was only for this period. This was my last game. I have played twenty games and I have not lost any,” he said at the time.

Just one defeat, and by penalties

The coach left the national team after losing a penalty shootout in a contested match against the albiceleste, later world champions, and a record 40 victories in 63 games at the helm of the Netherlands, a record. In the final stage, they accumulated 14 wins, 5 draws and one loss, against Argentina in a penalty shootout.

His best record as a coach was third place at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, beating the hosts 3-0 in a fight for the podium with players like Dirk Kuyt, Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie.

Koeman returns after going to Barça in 2020

His successor, Koeman, in his first period as national coach that started in 2018, was a finalist in the Nations League in 2019. He left the national team in 2020 to take the Barcelona bench until 2021.