One statement is enough to start general laughter. “I’m the most handsome guy in this room,” says Louis Van Gaal (Amsterdam, 72 years old). He wears a grayish linen suit and an orange tie. “I always go with the orange”, he confesses. Although if he is in the auditorium of the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) it is not to talk about football or the Euro Cup, that too, but to promote prevention and research with his tremendous humor, keys in the fight against cancer. The technician, who three years ago was diagnosed with prostate cancer, hides under his elegant suit a t-shirt with the message: “Always positive.”
It was December 1999 and Van Gaal, then coach of FC Barcelona, responded to Rafa Carbonell, EL PAÍS journalist: “You are very bad. Interpretation: always negative, never positive.” That video has been played thousands and thousands of times. To the surprise of the protagonist. “It seems incredible to me that this phrase is still valid today,” he says with a laugh, the temper appeased. With age and the ups and downs of life.
Louis was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was barely 11 years old. His father, a few years later. “Of the nine brothers, only three of us remain. “They all left too young,” he concedes regretfully. His first wife, Fernanda, died at the age of 39. She had pancreatic and liver cancer. “I know that life is a gift. I don’t have to be positive, but I have to be because I learned it since I was little, I learned not to feel sadness. It affects anyone to suffer a great loss like it did to me. But I am happy, I was born very positive. It is something genetic,” he explains in an interview conducted after the presentation of the campaign.
That sentence that made the Dutch coach go viral when we still didn’t know what social networks were is today the reason for a campaign to raise funds for the CNIO. All profits from the sale of T-shirts from the El Ganso brand will be used entirely to hire researchers for the team led by María Blasco, molecular biologist and director of the center, second in the international ranking, only behind her counterpart. Dutch. Curious, life.
“We know that Spain is a football country. But people don’t know that it is also a country of science,” says Blasco to explain that he needs to “sign talent” and to vindicate his task, which is vital for many patients like Van Gaal himself, who confesses: “Now I can urinate natural. It is a dream come true!”. The joking tone does not hide the seriousness of the situation.
“I was 69, now I’m 72. It’s been three years dealing with the disease. And it hasn’t been easy. I have 25 four-minute radiations behind me. I suffer from a very aggressive type of cancer, but that is only my fault. That is why I participate in this campaign. To help my male colleagues, so that they ask for help and go for reviews at the right time. Because it can be prevented. You know when you are having trouble urinating. It is at that moment when you have to go to the doctor,” he explains.
“I was stupid. I waited and waited. I thought that a disease like that would not attack me. But it happened. I have always thought that my body is capable of fighting disease. I told it to my children. But it doesn’t always work. Especially as you get older.” She narrates her journey with a smile on her face. No grandiloquence. But with his usual severity. He has gone through “a lot” of operations these years and now he feels much better.
“It was easier to tell the footballers on TV and not to their faces. It’s called emotions.”
When he was diagnosed, at first, he kept it a secret. After the radiotherapy treatment and in the middle of the concentration season with the selection orange Before the World Cup in Qatar, in 2022, he attended a Dutch television program. He was the coach, but his players did not know that he was sick. “I slept in the afternoons when they were also resting. They couldn’t know it. But then I understood that the most honest thing was to tell him,” he recalls. And he preferred to make it public in a big way.
-It was difficult for me to explain it to them, who were my work environment. It was easier to tell it on television and for them to find out that way.
-Because?
-Because when you talk face to face with another person you perceive what that person feels. And it’s harder to explain bad things. We call them emotions.
-How were you able to resist the concentrations, the pressure of the World Cup?
-I had already finished the hardest treatment, but I had to go to the hospital a couple of times, because I couldn’t urinate. Although I didn’t tell him either. He was leaving through the back door of the hotel. That’s why they didn’t find out either. In the end, every morning at training time I was always there.
-Is being positive also valid in football?
-Yes I think so. It is a must. And it is the coach’s job. Have a vision and convince the players of that vision, make everyone want to feel part of it. That is the art of the good coach.
“The Premier is more entertaining than the League, but worse technically and tactically. That’s why England isn’t winning anything.”
Just a few days ago, the Netherlands celebrated the 50th anniversary of the debut of the Clockwork Orange, a memory that, Van Gaal believes, should not be a burden for the national team, today coached by his successor Ronald Koeman and fighting to qualify for the round of 16. final (2-1 to Poland). “I suppose that the players have also seen all the documentaries and programs that have been made about that Holland of ’74 and that have been broadcast these days in the country. I’ve seen them too. But we must assume that back then the Netherlands had great and very creative players. Johan Cruyff was the best. I don’t think the national team has such creative players now. It is more difficult to win with this squad, although Holland always competes,” he assumes. And he explains how the evolution of football, that evolution in which he also participated as a coach, has meant that there are now more defensive teams than ever: “You see a lot of defense with five or ten players behind the ball, something that 50 years ago “It was practically prohibited.”
Van Gaal sees Spain as favorite ahead of the Netherlands and Portugal; and he admires Germany. “Although all teams can grow during a championship like this. I like Spain’s style, but also the ways in which Germany plays as a team and until the last minute; It is that type of team that can mark you until the last minute. And not because of luck, but because they compete until the end.”
In addition, he has his reservations regarding two of the favorites, according to public opinion, England and France. The latter will be Holland’s rival this Friday (at 9:00 p.m., La1). “Let’s see how it evolves and if they are good enough. If they didn’t have Mbappé, it will be more difficult for them. Luck is also needed to win a title. A team needs its players healthy and fit to win. It is the great unknown.”
On the other hand, he continues, “It amazes me why England is not as good a team as it should be if you follow the Premier League. It seems incredible to me that they suffered to win their first game against Serbia 1-0 (this Thursday they tied against Denmark: 1-1). I have always argued that, despite the Premier League, Spain is the best football country. If you watch the Premier, it is more entertaining than the Spanish league, but I think that the technical and tactical level in Spain is higher. And that’s why England isn’t winning anything. His level is worse.”
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