Nice story...
http://www.football365.com/news/mails-liverpool-will-challenge-next-season
Following the game yesterday and LVG’s post-match comments, I thought it would be worth writing in to the mailbox about an encounter I had with the United manager on holiday last summer in Vilamoura, Portugal. My wife and I were out for dinner when we saw him and his family entering the restaurant we were in (whilst we were sat at the back by the toilets, he and his family were placed front and centre in the middle obviously). I’m a Spurs fan but I thought that I would never get the chance again to meet someone with such history in the game, Ajax, Barca, Holland and United to name but a few. So, once we had finished, and by this time the restaurant had virtually cleared out, with a bit of Dutch courage (i.e a fair few beers and wines), I decided to interrupt the Van Gaal family dinner and ask for a photo. Having heard of his reputation as a tough task master, and seeing his interactions over the years with the press, I was a bit nervous at his reaction, but before I could even finish my question of whether I could have a photo, he stopped me and asked me who I supported, specifically, are you United or City? I said neither, I was a Spurs fan. Straight away he smiled and said that is OK then. His son immediately stood up and said that he would take the picture and commented that they were big fans of Spurs and “Mr. Levy”.
He asked me to sit next to him and once the photo had been taken, asked me my thoughts on Spurs. I said that last season was OK, but felt that this season we would again be pushing for 4th, but would probably finish 5th or 6th (how wrong was I). He immediately stopped me and said that we had a great “selection” (not sure why, but he always used that word instead of team/squad) and said that we would win the league in the next few years if we stayed together. Obviously I thought he was being polite as no one could have foreseen what has since happened, and just replied that I thought he would have more chance with his team as he would be able to spend some serious money in the summer. He was actually then quite dismissive as he said that he couldn’t win the league with this selection, they weren’t good enough. I said that he would be buying a few players soon to add to that squad and he laughed and said possibly…..it was very shortly after this that Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlein joined. I just said please don’t take Lloris away from us as at the time it looked certain that De Gea would be going to Madrid…again he just laughed.
I thought I would push my luck a bit and mentioned to him that everyone thought that he was going to be signing for us before United came in for him. He said that the deal was all agreed with “Mr. Levy”, and he was very impressed with him and Spurs as a whole, but then United came in and he simply couldn’t turn them down. But he said that he would love to work with Mr Levy one day and his whole family were very fond of Spurs.
At this point I realised I had outstayed my welcome and his wife, daughter in law and grandchild were sick of me sitting there so I thanked him for being so nice and said good luck for the season.
He was genuinely a lovely guy and couldn’t have been further away from the irritable man we see in front of the press now. His comments yesterday about United being a bigger club than Spurs may still be true, but I know which club I’m backing (admittedly, slightly biased) for success over the next few years. How different our seasons could have been if we had had LVG in charge and not Pochettino. Lets just make sure we keep him now!
Mike, Southend (THFC obviously)