[18] Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano on a scary van Gaal

[Red News]

“If you treat your people bad, they remember. One day you make an error and they kill you. I’ve seen this in many clubs. Louis van Gaal has been a very good coach in many clubs but his style is very difficult. The same thing happened to him in Barcelona as in Bayern Munich. He is very tough, people don’t like him, but he wins. And one day you don’t win – and when you don’t win, everybody that is angry with you will come back to you and try to kill you. In the movies this works, in real life it doesn’t. One thing I have learned in football is that leadership is a very difficult thing. You need to choose your leadership style based on what your team needs, not your character. This is counter-intuitive. People think a good leader is someone with character. I say a good leader is someone who can listen to the team, understand the kind of leadership a team needs and apply it.”